Angel of the Bones
by Marcus S. Lazarus
Summary: A look at the events of "Bones" through the eyes of Special Agent Seeley Booth... the man once known as Angel, the vampire with a soul
1. After the Fall

Disclaimer: I own neither Angel or anything associated with him, and "Bones" is equally out of my reach control-wise

Feedback: Appreciated

AN: Well, here's my latest project; a look at various crucial scenes in the various episodes of "Bones" based on the premise that Angel and Booth are the same person. The first chapter looks at HOW Angel went from himself to Booth, based on the premise that everything up to the conclusion of "After the Fall", with Los Angeles being returned to Earth from Hell, still took place- it involves a bit of time travel, but it was the only way I could think of to account for what we know of Booth's army and federal career-, and all subsequent chapters will feature brief scenes from the various episodes of "Bones" told from Angel/Booth's perspective, and analysing how his life as Angel affects his views on those situations

Angel of the Bones

As Angel stood outside the Jeffersonian building, he couldn't help but glance at his watch; he'd never liked waiting for anything, and things had only become worse after he'd become human again.

It wasn't that he disliked being human, of course- the obvious benefits such as being able to walk in sunlight and _not _worry about the status of his soul generally helped him relax a great deal-, but ever since he'd regained the ability to age he hated being kept waiting around for any reason; with a normal life stretching ahead of him, he wanted to really _live _it.

It might seem a bit strange on the surface, particularly given that he already had over two and a half centuries of life experience in his head even _without _the extra memories the Powers had given him of his life as Seeley Booth, but he preferred to form as many real memories as possible with people who _genuinely _knew him rather than people he'd 'met' in his 'fake' memories; it was one reason that he hadn't really spent much time talking to 'his' brother Jared ever since he'd started this life, given that most of his memories of the guy technically weren't 'real' and he always ended up feeling a bit like an intruder into someone else's life whenever they spoke.

Generally, keeping his two histories straight wasn't a problem; it had been so long since his _own _childhood that he had no chance of confusing his present family life with his original one, even without the differing parental styles of his two 'fathers' (His original one was more prone to verbal assault than the physical style of Booth Senior). The second childhood memories weren't exactly happy, of course- remembering how it felt to be seriously thinking about _killing _yourself when you were a teenager wasn't encouraging by any stretch of the imagination, after all-, but at least it gave him a decent excuse not to talk too much about his background; he didn't like lying to people unless he had to, but with a childhood like he remembered most people tended to expect him to be evasive about it.

In the end, the only real problem he'd had with the whole thing was the part where he'd been sent back in time a few years before beginning his 'new' life. After the whole mess with Los Angeles being sent to Hell, the Powers- in the form of Cordelia, naturally; even after ascending onto a higher plane she was still doing what she could to help him- had concluded that the whole thing had attracted too much attention to the supernatural for comfort, and so they'd sent him back a few years to increase his chances of staying anonymous. Getting suddenly dumped into a pre-prepared life while still remembering the old one wasn't exactly perfect, but with the aid of a spell that prevented anyone from recognising him as Angel if they meant him harm- coupled with the fact that he'd tended to take care to avoid any areas where he might run into people who knew him since he'd been sent back in time in the first place-, he'd managed to make it this far without any run-ins with anybody who knew him, and even managed to make a pretty good life for himself in the process.

He'd been in the Bureau for the last eight or so years since leaving the army, which he'd been a member of for around two years before that; adapting his vampire/demon fighting skills to confronting human enemies hadn't been that difficult, and he'd retained some pretty good reflexes even without his vampire abilities that made it fairly straightforward for him to get the hang of using a gun, but…

He sighed slightly at the memory of his time as a sniper.

In the end, his time in the army had become too much like his time as Angelus; by the time he'd taken out his fiftieth target, he wasn't even entirely sure he felt _anything _for them any more.

He knew that the people he killed always deserved it, of course, but that didn't make it any easier; he'd killed humans who'd deserved it back when he'd first regained his soul, and it _still _made him feel like crap when he thought of those times.

Add in Parker to the equation (A _really _unexpected 'complication', but in the end he couldn't be that sorry about his uncertain custody status; he'd found Rebecca great company when they were dating, but he was never certain how she'd react to the knowledge of what he had been, and he still enjoyed his time with Parker when he could get it), and he'd just had more reasons to get out of the business.

He might not have custody of the kid- and _God_, why was it he could _never _seem to do the right thing by his kids; Connor got abducted and raised in a hell dimension for eighteen years and he barely saw Parker for more than a week a month-, but if he was going to be any kind of father, he was going to at least be someone who didn't _kill _people for a living.

His time in Angel Investigations might have consisted mainly of having Wesley attend to the intellectual side of things- although Doyle, Cordelia and Lorne had also been good at gathering information in their own ways-, but he'd still picked up some useful detective-based skills over the years beyond simply beating up the other guy to get the information he wanted, and his already-thorough knowledge of how most serial killers and stalkers operated from his time as Angelus was even more effective at helping him get into the minds of his targets.

Of course, it didn't mean he was capable of dealing with the larger cases he might encounter on his

"Special Agent Booth?" a voice said, drawing Angel's attention back to the present, prompting him to register the presence of the speaker; a woman about his physical age, shoulder-length brown hair framing a smooth round face with clear blue eyes, dressed in a casual yet smart pair of dark trousers and a dark shirt, standing at the door with an impatient glare. "Doctor Temperance Brennan; I understand the F.B.I. requested my presence?"

"That's why I'm here," Angel replied, nodding back at her in confirmation as he shook her hand, all thoughts of his vampiric past pushed aside in favour of the more immediate matter.

Reflections on the past could wait; right now, he needed this woman's help to find a murder victim, and he was going to get down to business as soon as possible.


	2. Pilot

Disclaimer: I own neither Angel or anything associated with him, and "Bones" is equally out of my reach control-wise

Feedback: Appreciated

AN: The first chapter, looking at crucial events in the pilot episode through the eyes of Booth when he was once known as Angel; hope you all like it

AN 2: To clarify in advance, all scenes in the episodes happen the same way they did originally; I'm just focusing on those moments where Angel's past would have a particular influence on his thoughts about certain issues

AN 3: Just to get this out of the way, when Booth's talking with someone, he'll think of himself as Booth, but he'll be Angel when he's in private; he might think of himself as more 'Booth' than 'Angel' now, but that doesn't mean over two centuries of life are going to be discarded to his subconscious just because he's alive now

Angel of the Bones

As he stood outside Director Sam Cullen's office waiting for his superior to finish with his current meeting- he wasn't sure if he'd ever get entirely used to that; after so long being in charge when he was in a group, working for others might take the pressure of him to always be the one to save the day but it still could get somewhat uncomfortable at times-, Angel couldn't help but wonder why he was doing this.

Doctor Temperance Brennan- or 'Bones' as he liked to call her; 'Temperance' was too much of a mouthful to say all the time, calling her 'Tempe' would have run the risk of giving the impression that she was only a temp rather than a professional and thus leaving them less inclined to answer her interrogation attempts, and she rubbed her doctorate in his face enough without him deliberately drawing attention to it by calling her 'Doctor Brennan', so 'Bones' had seemed like a good choice for a nickname- might be brilliant, but at the same time she was primarily a scientist; even when she was off doing field work in foreign countries she wasn't exactly entering into a position where she'd be going one-on-one with someone capable of cold-bloodedly murdering a human being and leaving them in the state that this latest body had been found in…

No, he had to face facts; in the end, the main reason he'd wanted her to stay out of this investigation was that he found the connotations of the whole situation a bit… uncomfortable.

Quite frankly, she _already _reminded him too much of three of the most important women in his old life; her background and skills might be different, but her martial arts abilities automatically reminded him of Buffy, her lack of tact- albeit out of a lack of experience in social situations rather than the result of a thoughtless personality- evoked memories of Cordelia, and he was certain that her intellect would have made Fred look like an idiot if they'd gone into the same fields rather than Fred studying physics while Bones went into anthropology…

Add in helping him track down criminals in a more active role than just studying the bodies, and he wasn't sure if he could maintain his needed distance…

Angel shook that thought aside; it wasn't like _that _was going to happen anyway. His current relationship with Tessa was pleasant enough (He still sometimes felt strange pursuing an actual relationship after so long as a vampire- even his time with Nina had mainly consisted of a few shared meals and just the occasional night together, and that was the most normal relationship he'd had as a vampire- but she was definitely engaging company), and if he'd learned anything from his attempts at relationships with Buffy and Cordelia, it was that mixing business with pleasure by trying to have a relationship with a colleague was just too… complicated.

He could definitely see Bones being a friend, but he'd made the mistake of getting too close twice before and it had only resulted in both parties getting burned; he wouldn't do that to someone else he fought alongside again.

Working actively with Bones on cases could definitely work if that was what it took to get her expertise, but anything closer than a professional relationship would be a _really _bad idea…

As Cullen's door finally opened and the previous agent walked out, Angel shook those thoughts aside- worrying about possible attachments he might or might not develop to a woman who could _never _be more than a friend to him wasn't relevant; solving this murder was what mattered now-, assumed what Gunn would probably have referred to as his 'Booth mode', and walked into the office, already aware that Cullen wasn't going to be entirely happy with this latest turn of events.

"You guaranteed a squint a field roll in an active murder investigation?" Cullen said, picking up the conversation that they'd begun on the phone as though it had never been interrupted.

"Yes sir," Booth replied.

"The one that wrote the book?" Cullen asked; evidently he was trying to process this latest turn of events by asking the same question in different ways.

"Yes sir."

"I thought you said she wouldn't work with you anymore?" Cullen asked, his pointed expression clearly seeking clarification for the reasons behind that attitude.

"Well," Booth replied, shrugging slightly, "the last case we worked she provided a description of the murder weapon and the murderer, but I didn't give her much credence."

"Why not?"

"Because she did it by looking at the victim's autopsy x-rays," Booth replied, hoping that the explanation would suffice; he hadn't felt that Bones's explanation had been sufficient at the time, but any explanation involving that kind of advanced technology still made him somewhat uncomfortable, mainly because he'd spent so long operating on relatively low-tech methods of determining cause of death such as claw or teeth marks on the body…

"Well," Cullen said, his slight sniff of amusement putting Booth's mind to rest in that regard, "I wouldn't have given it much credence either."

"Turns out she was right on both," Booth added, deciding to get to the central issue as he stood up and handed the latest file over to Cullen. "Plus, the pond victim? Doctor Brennan was able to give me the victims' age, sex, and favourite sport."

"Which is?" Cullen asked, unable to stop a brief, amused laugh at the sight of the skeleton before him; clearly, like Booth, he found the idea of someone finding anything from that skeleton surprising.

"Tennis," Booth said, knowing that the word was all he needed.

"She's good," Cullen said with a brief nod.

"No; she's amazing," Booth corrected. "If the only way I can get her back on my side is to bring her out in the field, I'm willing."

"Fine," Cullen nodded in response after a brief pause. "She's on you. Take a squint out in the field, she's your responsibility."

"Yes sir," Booth confirmed as he took back the folders, already quietly confident about his chances; if he could keep the majority of a group of barely-trained high school students- as well as a virtually incompetent Watcher- alive in a fight with a mass of vampires during the Ascension, he could definitely keep one squint alive when facing a _human _murderer…

* * *

As he walked down the stairs towards the shooting range, Booth wasn't surprised to see Bones standing at one end of the range firing bullets at the target with a cool ease that matched most of the mental imagery he'd already formed of her personality. As though hearing his presence despite her ear protectors, she removed the protectors and turned to look at him briefly, her expression neutral as she took him in.

"Thought I'd find you here," Booth said by way of explanation, even as she turned her head back to look at the target.

"Y'know," he said, as he shrugged and walked towards her, "you being a good shot and doing martial arts; it's all your way of dealing. I mean, who knows better than you how fragile life can be?"

"Maybe an Army Ranger Sniper who became an FBI homicide investigator?" Bones replied, her tone casual and giving no indication of her feelings on his past.

"Ah," Booth said, trying not to show his thoughts on the matter; he might not have the same kind of body count as a human that he had accumulated as Angelus, but he still didn't like it when people learned about the lives he'd taken. "You looked me up, huh?"

Trying to pass that topic off, he walked over to stand beside her, indicating the gun now lying in front of the anthropologist. "Do you mind?"

"Be my guest," Bones replied, sliding the gun over to him.

"Thanks," Booth said briefly, picking up the gun and aiming it at the target before firing one shot, only feeling partly disappointed when the shot only just hit the target; he wasn't used to this style of gun, but he'd thought that his shooting abilities were better than that.

"Were you any good at being a sniper?" Bones asked, amusement clear in her voice.

"A sniper gets to know a little something about killers," Booth said, deciding to ignore that comment in favour of focusing on the central issue that should be occupying their attention at the moment, while trying not to think about the fact that his time as Angelus meant that he had a better insight into killers than what he was implying he possessed. "Senator Bethlehem? He's no killer."

"Oh, and Oliver Lauriea is?" Bones asked, turning around to face him as she leaned against the small wall behind her, prompting Angel to turn and face her himself.

"The way I read Lauriea, he's unhinged," he said, lowering his voice as he spoke. "That makes him dangerous."

"That would be your gut telling you that, correct?" Bones replied.

"You know, homicides?" Angel continued, once again ignoring Bones's comment, placing a hand on the wall behind her as he continued speaking. "They're not solved by scientists; they're solved by guys like me asking a thousand questions a thousand times, catching people telling lies every time. You're great at what you do Bones but you don't solve murders; cops do."

(He freely acknowledged that there were some cases where cops _couldn't _solve murders- particularly when elements from his 'old' life came into play- but he wasn't going to focus on those; the world had Buffy and her Slayer army to tackle the supernatural elements in existence now, and all he had to worry about was more conventional killers.)

"Cleo Eller," Bones retorted, moving slightly forward to bring their faces even closer together, "was killed on a cement floor sprinkled with diatomaceous earth. Traces of her blood will still be in that cement. One of us is wrong. Maybe both of us. But if Bethlehem wasn't a Senator you would be right there in his basement looking for that killing floor. You're afraid of him. Your hypothesis is that squints don't solver murders and cops do?"

With that statement, she shot a brief, cocky smile in his direction. "Prove it. Be a cop."

With that, Bones turned around and walked away, leaving him staring silently after her, her words turning around in his head.

He had to admit, the whole thing with the current prime suspect being a senator didn't exactly make him feel comfortable; unlike those occasions when he'd had to deal with vampires like Russell Winters in the past, he couldn't just kick this guy out of the window and walk away without even a body to show for it, even if he'd been _certain _that the guy was guilty…

Without even being certain why he did it- maybe he just wanted to remind himself that he _was _in control of _something _at this point- Booth drew his gun from its holster and fired it twice at the target that Bones had been shooting at earlier, pausing just long enough to confirm that his accuracy with this weapon was undiminished- two shots straight to the head, pretty much where the left eye would be; not a bad shot, really- before he turned around and headed back up the stairs.

Right now, he had some things he needed to think about before things went any further…

* * *

As he watched Bones walk away from the casket, the rest of the 'Squint Squad'- not that he'd ever call them all that to their faces- simply standing around him, Booth shrugged off any thoughts about what he should or shouldn't do at this point and walked off to join Bones, swiftly settling into a brief, companionable silence alongside her before he finally sighed.

"What?" Bones asked, looking briefly back at him.

"Told you it wasn't the senator," Booth said, deciding that he might as well start by pointing out where she'd gone wrong.

"And I told you who it was, so we're even," Bones finished, her tone only slightly smug.

"'Cept," Booth added, "we work on the same cases, and _you _end up on the _New York Times _best-sellers list."

"I didn't know that," Bones said, looking back at him in evident surprise.

"Mmm-hmm," Booth nodded- he was briefly reminded of Fred's surprise when she saw that her speech was one of the main highlights at that Physics thing she'd been invited to, before that whole mess with her discovery about Professor Siedel's role in her time in Pylea-, smiling slightly at her. "Number three with a bullet."

"That's good, right?" Bones asked. "The New York Times with a bullet?"

"It means you're rich," Booth replied briefly. "Call your accountant."

"I don't have an accountant," Bones replied with a brief laugh.

"Well, get one," Booth replied dismissively.

"OK… how does that work?" Bones asked, looking inquiringly at him, prompting a brief sigh from Booth.

"You _need _to get out of the lab," he said (He wouldn't think about the fact that he only picked up anything about having an accountant from his time in charge of Wolfram & Hart). "Y'know, watch TV, turn on the radio, anything. Pick up the phone and…"

His voice trailed off as he realised that she was looking at something behind her, prompting him to glance back and watch as he saw the Ellers walking over to place roses on Cleo's grave.

Despite the solemn nature of the whole proceeding, Booth couldn't help but feel a certain satisfaction at the resolution.

"You know," he said, turning back to look at Bones, "if it weren't for you those people would never have known what happened to their daughter. That's gotta be worse then the truth."

"I know exactly how the Ellers felt about Cleo," Bones replied, still staring out at the funeral as though she wasn't even sure she should be saying this. "My parents disappeared when I was fifteen and nobody knows what happened to them."

For a moment, Booth wasn't sure what to say- he'd already known what she told him, but the fact that she'd chosen to share it on her own meant a great deal-, but then the right words came to him.

"Me being a sniper," he said at last, focusing on the more 'human' explanation for his motivations- the fact that he was human might have meant he'd achieved redemption for his sins as a vampire, but his human murders and his poor behaviour when he was Liam still needed to be accounted for-, "I… I took a lot of lives. What I'd like to do before I'm done… is try to catch at least that many murderers."

Despite the solemn nature of the statement, Bones smiled at him.

"Please don't tell me you think there's some kind of… cosmic balance sheet?" she said, a faint amusement in the idea in her voice that only an atheist could possess.

Booth didn't bother answering, but simply stared back at her, until the smile faded in place of a resolute nod.

"I'd like to help you with that," she said.

It wasn't much, but Booth couldn't help but remember an Irish-accented voice asking him a question with a similar meaning to Brennan's last statement, so many years ago.

"_You know there's a lot of people in this city that need helping_."

"_So I've noticed_."

"_You gam__e_?"

"_I'm game_."

Bones was so far from being his new Doyle it was almost ridiculously funny to even _think _of comparing the two, but the fundamental basics of the situation were the same; he'd been looking for a way to help people, and Doyle and Bones both offered him a way to do that more effectively than what he'd been doing previously (Buffy had primarily inspired him to actually try making a long-term effort; she hadn't actually given him any ideas on _how _to do that beyond the obvious details of staking vampires before they could kill anyone).

As the two of them walked off towards the entrance to the cemetery, Booth couldn't shake the feeling that he was setting off on a path that would lead to some _very _interesting cases in his new life…


	3. The Man in the SUV

Disclaimer: I own neither Angel or anything associated with him, and "Bones" is equally out of my reach control-wise

Feedback: Appreciated

Angel of the Bones

As Bones stormed out of the lab towards her office, Booth wished that he was able to summon the energy to be as defensive about Agent Gibson's presence as he would have liked. In all honesty, he couldn't help but agree with her evidently negative opinion of having someone looking over her shoulder while she worked; after comparing Giles's abilities as a Watcher with Wesley's tenure in the role- before he'd relocated to Los Angeles, of course-, he'd recognised fairly quickly that Buffy's main reason for being so successful with Giles in charge was that Giles had generally allowed her free reign during her patrols even when he'd been monitoring her performance, while Wesley tended to keep trying to tell Buffy how to do things.

Of course, the situation wasn't quite the same here- Gibson wasn't exactly telling her how to do her job, he just wanted to be there while she was doing it- but the essential essence of the problem remained the same.

"This is my lab," Bones said as she walked down the hallway towards her office in frustration, Booth just behind her. "I'm a scientist, a doctor-"

"Yeah, so I've heard," Booth pointed out, allowing himself a brief smile at her now-familiar reference to her doctrate.

"Look, would _you _be able to do your job if someone was looking over your shoulder all the time?" Bones countered, turning around to face him with her hands raised in frustration even as she continued to walk backwards.

"You do; I've developed a tolerance," Booth retorted, his mind briefly flashing back to Wesley in his early days in the agency; the man had been great at research in the early days, but his poor combat skills had caused more than one problem at that time.

"I'm _sorry_," Bones said, as she turned back around and continued walking, "but I don't understand the 'advantage' of compromise-"

"This is a terrorist attack, Bones," Booth interjected, not wanting to get drawn into a debate about compromise after he'd spent almost a year doing that during his time in charge of Wolfram & Hart; even if he was confident he could maintain enough control not to mention that time of his life, he preferred to avoid thinking about it unless he had to. "It's bigger than you, and it's bigger than me."

"The job is the same-" Bones began, pausing in her office doorway as she turned to face him.

"No, it's _not_," Booth countered, walking forward slightly so that he was standing closer to her to better emphasise his words. "We're dealing with someone here who devalues an entire culture; terrorizing people by using God to justify mass murder."

Even as he spoke, his memories briefly flashed back to Darla's old enjoyment of religious wars; this kind of thing had always given her a sick sense of pleasure that he'd never fully understood even as Angelus (Which wasn't to say he hadn't shared her pleasure back then; he just hadn't quite understood what she'd been _that _excited about).

"You're making it personal," Bones said, looking silently at him; for a moment, Booth wondered at the fact that someone so apparently bad at understanding people could be that good at understanding _him_…

"It is personal, Bones", he said simply. "All of us die a little bit on one like this."

_Particularly when it reminds you of all the times you did the same thing yourself_… he reflected grimly as he turned away to give her time to cool down on her own, once again facing the familiar feeling of being torn between his wish to forget the past horrors he'd committed and his refusal to forget the faces of those he'd killed.

* * *

As he stepped off an elevator inside the main FBI building, practically _feeling _Bones's smile without even needing to see it, Booth finally lost patience.

"OK, _what _is so funny?" he asked, looking at her in frustration.

"I just never figured you being in a relationship," Bones replied, a broad grin on her face.

"Why?" Booth asked, his mind briefly flashing back to Trevor Bryce's comment about him being a eunuch when he and the others interrupted his attempt to sacrifice Virginia. "Do you think something's _wrong _with me?"

"Not _wrong_," Bones clarified as they entered a nearby office area with only a couple of lower-level agents inside; it was at least more private than the corridor. "You just have alpha male attributes usually associated with a solitary existence."

"What, _me_?" Booth said in surprise; he knew that he still wasn't exactly a very social person, but compared to his life as Angel when you could count his close friends on two hands- back in Sunnydale Willow had been the closest thing he'd had to an actual friend in the gang outside of Buffy-, he liked to think that he'd improved since then. "_You're _solitary."

"No no," Bones retorted, her tone actually sounding slightly condescending, "I'm private; it's different, and we weren't talking about me-"

"Well, I was-" Booth countered.

"Well, I _wasn't_," Bones replied, before she spread her arms in a shrugging gesture. "Look, I'm happy for you. Relationships have anthropological meaning. No society can survive if sexual bonds aren't formed bet-"

"What the _hell_ are you talking about?" Booth asked, looking at her in frustration; he hadn't been this exasperated with anyone since he'd last had to deal with one of Illyria's old pre-depowerment rants about how she'd been around when humanity had yet to crawl out of the primordial slime that created them…

"Booth?" another voice said from the side, prompting the two of them to turn around just in time to see Agent Santana appear from around the corner.

"Yeah?" Booth replied, glad to have sometime to take his attention off the current topic.

"You got that ID?" the other agent asked.

"Yeah; it was Masruk," Booth replied.

"Oh…" Santana said, his expression grim at that statement. "That's too bad."

"He killed four people and injured another fifteen," Bones said, the confusion on her face reflecting Booth's own feelings; why was this guy showing sympathy for a man capable of that kind of destruction?

"The report came back from ballistics," Santana said, passing the file to Booth as he spoke, giving Booth time to study it as he listened to the other man. "The explosives were placed under the care with the trigger connected to the odometer; Masruk was murdered."

"So Masruk _wasn't _a terrorist…" Bones said, her head nodding slightly as she studied the information before her.

"Somebody tried to make him look like one," Booth muttered.

Some ideas were constant wherever you went, it seemed; if it wasn't Darla setting things up to make it look like _he _was the one who'd attacked Joyce back when Buffy first learned what he was, than people were framing innocent men for terrible crimes…

"Any leads on who did it?" he asked, his mind back on track as he glanced up at Santana.

"That's why we're paying _you_, Booth," Santana replied, before he turned around and walked out of the office, leaving the two of them staring at the file before them.

_Damnit…_ Booth thought grimly.

He might be used to taking the lead, but there were times when he really _hated _it when people expected him to come up with all the answers…

* * *

As he and Bones entered the Hamilton Cultural Centre where the conference was being held, Booth wasn't sure what made him more sick; the fact that someone was planning to kill this many people for some petty religious reason that he couldn't fully understand, or the fact that he'd killed his own _brother _as part of his agenda.

God… he still had the occasional nightmare about Angelus's murder of Kathy back when he'd begun his reign of terror as Angelus; the thought that Farid had done that as _himself_ just to protect his own sick agenda…

He shook off his moral disgust at the guy's actions for later; right now, he had to find the guy before he could set off a bomb, capable of killing or contaminating anyone in the blast radius, in an open area filled with people and no way of knowing where he was going to set it off.

"We'll start down here and make our way upstairs," he said, nodding briefly at Bones as they walked through the last glass door before splitting up to take in the people around them; he wished that he'd been able to keep her out of this- this kind of fanaticism wasn't something she should have to deal with on only her second active case with him, and the response team Homeland Security had on its way should be able to cover the rest of the building-, but with time the way it was, he'd just have to deal with the situation at hand and hope for the best.

"There are too many ways in," Bones said, her voice drawing his attention where the conference announcer couldn't as she reached the foot of the escalator and began to ascend towards the upper floor, Booth quickly falling into position behind her.

"Where are the reinforcements?" Bones practically hissed at him, her voice low as she glanced anxiously around them. "Aren't there always reinforcements?"

"Sure, they're downstairs tying up the horses," Booth retorted.

"Sarcasm doesn't help," Bones said, her own voice low as she turned to look at him before returning her gaze to stare at the upper floor.

"OK," Booth admitted, "they're mobilising SWAT teams and additional agents, but it takes _time_, and if Farid has the bomb and spots them, it could be bad."

"If you see him, will you shoot?" Bones asked as they walked to the balcony at the edge of the floor and began to walk along it, scanning the people below them for any sign of Farid.

"Well, he might not have the bomb," Booth responded, trying not to consider the consequences if that statement proved to be incorrect; the last thing he wanted was to be responsible for another death unless he was _certain _it was the only way to prevent anyone else dying…

"You don't believe that?" Bones said, voicing his own concerns on the matter.

"I'm not taking out a target, Bones, unless I'm sure," he responded, his gaze still fixed on the crowd below him.

"Is that how you make it easier?" Bones asked, her tone giving no indication of her feelings about the topic. "Calling him a target?"

"You know," Booth said after a brief pause as he continued walking, "you really picked an odd time to have this conversation."

For a woman who always claimed she didn't believe in psychology, Bones was surprisingly good at it when she wanted to be…

Forcing those thoughts aside as they continued to walk around the floor- including a brief encounter with someone who slightly resembled Farid in profile before a glance at his face confirmed that he wasn't the man they were looking for-, before Booth suddenly ran over to a corner of the balcony.

"There!" she yelled, pointing at something on the level below them. "That's Farid!"

Hurrying over to join her, his gun in his hand- it still felt so small compared to the sniper rifle he'd wielded at first and the sword he'd used in so many battles in his time as a vampire-, Booth glanced down in the direction that her finger was pointing, only to see a figure in a dark jacket and grey trousers with dark hair walking towards the main crowd at the conference, with a bag at his side that could have held camera equipment or a bomb.

"I'm not sure…" Booth said awkwardly; he might trust that Bones knew what she was talking about in the lab, but Wesley in the early days had proven all too effectively that there was a significant difference between what you could do at a desk and how you performed in reality…

"Look!" Bones said urgently, indicating the man's slightly dragging legs. "His walk is labored from the dioxin poisoning and the parietal bones in his skull match his picture-!"

"His back's to us," Booth replied briefly; she could recount the scientific reasons why it might be him all she wanted, but he wasn't going to fire his gun without evidence. "What if you're wrong?"

"This is what I _do_, Booth; do you really want to wait?" Bones asked, turning to look impatiently at him before she turned back to point at Farid, her voice now speaking at a more rapid pace. "He's carrying something heavy in his camera bag; see how the extra weight is causing his shoulder to-"

"No, I can't!" Booth cut her off, refusing to listen to any more of her science; the last time he'd relied on instinct without gathering all the facts, he'd ended up killing a demon who'd actually been trying to _help _the woman who'd been there at the time…

He'd acted rashly in dealing with the Prio Motu demon, and Jo and her baby had almost died; he _wasn't _going to make that mistake again…

"He has all the markers, Booth!" Bones protested.

For a moment, Booth hesitated, and then he raised his gun, taking aim for a moment in case she was correct…

"I need a face," he said at last, once he was certain the man was in his sight. "I need a _face_-!"

"FARID!" Bones yelled out, prompting the figure to turn and face them, providing the clear confirmation of identity that Booth had been looking for.

"On the ground!" Booth yelled, his gun now fixed on Farid's face as the man's hand reached for the bag…

Booth didn't even need to hear Bones's comment about the bomb to know what he had to do; almost without thinking, he sent a bullet directly into the centre of Farid's forehead, sending the Arab falling to the ground as people screamed and retreated from the fallen body…

He might not be doing it with his bare hands any more, but one thing hadn't changed; when he started killing people, everyone else around him started to run.

It was only when he saw Agent Gibson's brief confirming nod at the presence of the bomb in Farid's bag that Booth allowed himself to relax; the number of _innocent _people he'd killed hadn't increased.

If only the same thing could be said about the number of people he'd killed overall…

He might not be killing humans for his own pleasure any more, but every time he took another person's life with his soul intact, Booth couldn't help but wonder how much longer it would be before the line between him and Angelus stopped keeping his own worse nature where it should remain…


	4. The Boy in the Tree

Disclaimer: I own neither Angel or anything associated with him, and "Bones" is equally out of my reach control-wise

Feedback: Appreciated

Angel of the Bones

"How hard can it be to find out which one of your students is missing?" Booth asked, looking in frustration at the Hanover Prep headmaster as he walked downstairs from the upper levels after a brief search for evidence of a break-in, the head of security just behind them.

He'd barely known either man more than a couple of hours, but their lack of reaction towards a dead boy hanging in a tree (Showing more concern about the implications for _them _rather than for the boy's family) meant that he already didn't like either of them; if Connor had still been his responsibility, he _definitely _wouldn't have sent his son to this place even if he could have afforded it, and Parker was _unquestionably _never even going to _hear _about this case...

Admittedly, the principal wasn't as bad as some of the stories Buffy had told him about that 'Snyder' guy who'd been principal during Buffy's years at Sunnydale High- at least he actually seemed to show _some _concern for the students, rather than Snyder's traditional attitude of treating anything remotely relating to teenagers with virtual loathing-, but his concern with the school's reputation over the life of a student was _not _doing him any favours in Booth's eyes…

"We can't just call parents and say 'We found a rotting body; do you know where your child is?'," Sanders said, his tone suggesting that he couldn't believe what Booth was asking them to do.

"We can do a full role call tomorrow," the headmaster added, evidently sharing Sanders's view on the situation.

"All of our higher-risk students are accounted for-" Sanders added.

"Higher risk?" Booth interjected, his mind automatically going over what that could mean and not liking the immediate implications; the idea that they had students on _suicide watch_...

"The ones with personal bodyguards," Sanders clarified as they entered the headmaster's office, simultaneously assuaging and elevating Booth's concerns; why was it that places like this seemed to focus more on themselves than the children they were meant to be responsible for?

"What are our options vis-a-ve publicity, media-?" the headmaster began.

"Not my concern," Booth replied briefly; he hadn't bothered about that kind of thing as Angel- beyond wanting to avoid it too much himself in case someone realised what he was- and he wasn't about to start now.

"There are students here we... really don't want the whole world to know about," Sanders said, automatically lowering Booth's opinion of him even further; what were the chances that one investigation would reveal _all _the students that this school had to the general public.

"It's obviously a suicide," the headmaster added, with that same tone of casual certainty that he'd heard far too often from Wolfram & Hart operatives in the past. "It's not as though we're asking you to forgo the glory of catching a murderer."

Booth was just grateful that his phone rang at that point; he might have been tempted to punch somebody if he hadn't had a good excuse to focus on something else.

"Excuse me, I'm sorry," he said, pulling out the phone and accepting the call as he raised it to his ear, ignoring the glances the other two men exchanged. "Booth."

"_We'll have the identity of the boy in the tree within the hour_," Bones's voice said on the other end of the line.

"That was fast," he commented, taking care to keep his tone neutral; letting his emotions out in a situation like this wouldn't help anything.

"_Do you know what a cochlear implant is_?" Bones asked.

"Hearing aid?" Booth responded; he'd tried to brush up on modern events after so long staying relatively out of touch during his time as Angel, but some things were just easier to remember than others...

"_Not exactly_," Bones replied. "_It's a much more sophisticated piece of equipment which is surgically fitted_-"

"Can you identify him through the serial number?" Booth asked, a reason for her mentioning this detail occurring to him (And _God_, he was grateful he'd listened to Fred's talk about serial numbers during one of their rare quiet days at Wolfram & Hart).

"_That's correct_," Bones confirmed, "_but the interesting thing is that_-"

"You can fill me in later," Booth interjected; right now, he had to deal with the headmaster and Sanders, and he'd prefer to limit the time he had to spend with them before he did something he'd regret.

"_No, but the interesting thing is that it's_-" Bones began.

"That is correct," Booth interjected, trying to give the impression that he was approaching the end of the conversation.

"..._What_?" Bones asked after a moment's pause.

"That is... interesting," he said, wishing that she'd take the hint he was giving her and hang up.

"_Are you drunk or something_?" his partner asked him in confusion.

"Ah, we'll catch up later," Booth said, impatient to end this conversation without appearing too impolite. "And, uh, thanks for calling."

"_Wait_," Bones began again. "_I'm not completely certain the boy's death was a suicide_-"

"Ah, you know," Booth concluded, finally hitting on the perfect way to close this argument and get back to the questions he _really _wanted to answer- particularly after hearing that titbit; at least now he knew there was a good chance that he had something to go after-, "we'll grab some Chinese food and you can fill me in later on all the boring details."

With that he terminated the phone call, shrugging apologetically at the two men before him, muttering a brief apology that even he didn't believe.

"A death is very... upsetting to a community as tight as ours," Sanders said, clearly aware that Booth wasn't buying his story and trying to press the importance of the false one onto him.

"Famous for keeping your students safe, but you can't be held responsible if a troubled student kills himself," Booth concluded, strongly missing the old days as Angel when he could punch anybody who got on his nerves to this extent; he might have more official authority as Booth, but he'd gained eminently more immediate satisfaction in the days when he could beat up the bad guys without worrying about claims of 'police brutality' in the aftermath.

"We all agree that suicide is the only feasible conclusion," Sanders said, in a tone that suggested there'd been a long conversation leading up to this point that Booth had missed.

"We understand each other?" the headmaster asked.

"We sure as hell do," Booth replied, knowing even as he said it that his discomfort at that statement was obvious.

"I'll need a complete enrolment list," he said, clearing his throat to draw attention away from his earlier tone. "Including teachers, staff, students-"

"That's extremely confidential information," Sanders said, his tone making it clear that he wasn't certain Booth could be trusted with that information.

"You know," Booth countered, already smiling at the aptness of what he was about to say, "luckily, I'm good at keeping secrets."

Even as Sanders turned to collect the files, Booth wondered how the man would react if he was aware of the _scale _of secrets he was keeping from the world; keeping the truth from those who could never accept it was one thing, but there were definitely times he wouldn't mind shaking up the world-view of some of the more pompous assholes he encountered in this line of work...

* * *

As he drove along the streets leading to the ambassador's house, Booth allowed himself a brief, satisfied smile at the knowledge of how recent events had played out.

He might not be _officially _investigating a murder yet- there were probably all kinds of pen-pushers in Washington who'd be willing to do anything to get it categorized as a suicide for the sake of the school-, but at least Bones's conclusion that they were tackling a murder meant that he had more time to create an accurate picture of the situation...

"Thank you," he said at last, when he realised for certain that Bones wasn't going to say anything; he was still more used to being the person who _participated _in conversations rather than being the one who initiated them...

"For what?" Bones asked, looking briefly back at him.

"For going with my instincts in there," he clarified,

"I did not back up your instincts; I bought time to find the facts I need to tell me what happened to Nester Olivos," Bones clarified.

Booth didn't bother arguing with her about that; she might have a different reason for doing this than him, but the central objective they were both aiming for remained the same, and that was what mattered.

"What's with you and the private school?" Bones asked, breaking the momentary silence once again.

"I thought we understood each other," Booth replied.

"Oh, that's bad?" Bones asked uncertainly.

"I don't... I don't like people who think they're better than other people," Booth said, even if that statement barely scratched the surface; after all the time Angelus had spent being so confident about his own superiority over everyone he met simply because he was a vampire, ideas of superiority _really _made him uncomfortable...

"Some people _are_ better than other people-" Bones began.

"You know," Booth interjected, determined to cut that train of thought off before it could go too far- he was fairly confident Bones wouldn't actually take that line of thought as far as his demon had taken it back in the day, but it was an uncomfortable reminder of a past he'd rather avoid-, "what you said right there; that is _so _un-American. All men are created equal; either you believe that, or you don't-"

"Some people are smarter than others; there's no use being offended by the fact," Bones replied.

For a moment Booth thought about protesting that just because some people were smarter than others didn't mean they were better than _everyone_- intellect didn't equal an automatic superiority in everything-, but right now this wasn't the time for something like that; they had a more immediate matter to deal with right now.

"What are we going to tell Nester's parents?" Bones asked, drawing the conversation back to the relevant issue.

"We tell them that their son was found dead," Booth answered bluntly. "We're looking into it, we're sorry for your loss... and we _are_."

"What?" Bones asked.

"Sorry for their loss," Booth clarified. "It's sad; try to remember that."

"I'm not a _sociopath_-!" Bones protested.

"You're bad with people, OK," Booth said, even as he made a mental note to apologise for that implication at a more convenient moment; it might be true, but ever since Wesley had helped him get past his own concerns about Groo replacing him he hated rubbing his friend's shortcomings in their faces unless he had to. "No use being offended by the fact."

The rest of the journey might have subsequently become slightly uncomfortable as they proceeded in relatively silence as Brennan looked at him in frustration, but Booth nevertheless allowed himself some slight satisfaction at having won the argument; it made a nice change to be the one making the valid point in his 'debates' with Bones.

* * *

As he walked into Wong Foo's for the belated lunch that he'd arranged earlier, Booth allowed himself a satisfied smile as the portly form of Sid walked out from behind the bar to greet him; the man might be several pounds heavier and possess a less vivid skin colour than Lorne- to say nothing of his less active role in the lives of his customers, of course-, but there was something about the guy that always helped Booth relax whenever he came here, as though he was back in the protected environment of Caritas once again...

"Hey," Sid said, nodding at Booth as he indicated Bones. "I'll say this; she's tall."

"Doctor Temperance Brennan," Booth said, deciding not to answer that statement as he turned slightly back to look at Bones, "meet Sid, the owner."

"Hey, the bone lady," Sid said, shaking her hand as he led the two of them over to Booth's usual booth (Looking back, Booth sometimes wondered where the Powers had come up with that as his new name, and was just grateful that Spike had never met him like this; he could just picture the ribbing he'd have received from his grandchilde for being named after an item of restaurant furniture).

"The sign says Wong Foo's," Bones said, clearly slightly confused as she and Booth took their seats.

"Family name changed at Ellis Island," Sid said simply. "I'll get your meal."

"But we didn't order-" Bones began as Sid walked off towards the kitchens.

"No, Sid knows what most people want better than they do," Booth said by way of explanation- one of those other little examples of things in his new life where he wasn't certain if they were supernatural in nature or just unusual quirks of nature-, only for his next statement to be cut off by the sight of the rest of the squints coming into the restaurant, Zach almost automatically throwing some files onto the table as he approached them.

"Nester's bones are completely normal," he said, as he moved into the booth to sit next to Bones while Angela and Hodgins slid in alongside Booth. "Not brittle in any way."

"You know," Booth muttered, as Angela not-so-subtly shoved him along into the middle of the booth, mourning the days when a stern glare would be enough to get him what he was looking for, "this is _kinda _my little 'getaway place', you know?"

"It proves that the rope left in the branch where Nester was hanging are too deep for his weight," Angela explained, acting as though she hadn't heard him despite her close proximity to him.

"Please, everyone..." Booth muttered, looking upwards in frustration as the squints crowded in around them. "You know, come on; just sit down."

"Eggs, larva, waste," Hodgins said- like Angela, displaying an apparent lack of awareness of Booth's presence- as Booth studied a picture of the corpse only to pass it on to Bones (He might have spent two centuries dead, but at least he'd stopped decomposing a long time ago; in some ways it was the _decay _more than the _death _he had trouble with), "all indicate that the insects which fed on the body are all indigenous to the tree in which he was found. It means he died there approximately ten to fourteen days ago. I'll have the seven organ soup!" he added, turning around to call over to the bar.

"You don't order; the guy just... brings it," Bones said, her voice her usual half-distracted tone as she studied the photos in her hands.

"He didn't void," Zach said, displaying the usual lack of tact that sometimes reminded Booth of Cordelia's early days barring the fact that Cordy was tactless out of brutal honesty while Zach just didn't seem to know when to be quiet. "Usually somebody hangs themselves, the flood gates open; bodily fluids everywhere."

"There was plenty of the affluent in his clothes but they are all post decomposition," Hodgins continued as he studied the photographs. "As the body swells, it bursts from internal gases... How does the guy know what you want?"

"The guy has a knack," Bones answered simply.

"The 'guy's' name is _Sid_," Booth interjected, trying to establish some degree of control over the mess what was supposed to be a quiet dinner had become; this place was meant to be the new Caritas, not somewhere to discuss the case of a dead boy.

"The birds ate his eyes and ears, working their way into the skull," Zach continued.

"Birds pecking at the soft tissue of the throat; could that crack the hyoid?" Hodgins cut in.

"No," Bones confirmed, shaking her head, "it's a stress fracture caused by the rope against his throat; not post-mortem."

"You put a high sensitive adolescent in a high pressure prep school," Angela pointed out, her tone reflective as she spoke, "add social alienation, cultural differences, pressure from high achieving parents… could be suicide."

"It's _not _suicide," Booth said, reaching over to pick up a small bowl of nuts from the middle of the table; maybe he'd relax more if he had something to chew on...

"Because Booth thinks that prep schools turn out entitled criminals," Bones said, indicating him with a brief wave of her hand.

"We all went to private school and none of _us _are criminals!" Hodgins said, looking indignantly over at Booth before he could correct Bones's statement.

"In fact," Zach added, a slight smile on his face, "we _fight _criminals; we're crime fighters."

"No, you're not," Booth began, glaring pointedly at Zach, preparing to begin a debate about how _finding _criminals wasn't the same as _fighting _them before he cut that train of thought off; he started getting into that kind of territory and he ran the risk of giving away information about his old way of doing things that he shouldn't be talking about.

"I'm just saying it's _not _a suicide," he finished at last, determined to at least make an effort to get the last word in before he turned his attention back to the nuts.

"I'm a _big _believer in instinct," Angela put in.

"_Finally_," Booth said, indicating her with a brief wave of his hand. "A squint with an open mind."

"You have _no _idea of how open-minded I can be," Angela said, looking at him with a slight smile that briefly put Booth in mind of Darla's more sultry moments- barring the sadistic gleam that had always accompanied that particular smile when it came from his sire-, although further conversation was cut off when Sid and a small group of waiters arrived at the table.

"What's with these pictures?" the restaurant owner said, looking in disgust at the photos of Nestor's body, shoving the pictures to the side and into Zach's lap as the staff began to lay the plates down in front of the squints. "This is a _restaurant_; people come here to _eat_! What's the matter with you people? Booth, what the _hell _did you bring into my place?"

"I had nothing to do with it," Booth said, raising his hands defensively even as he glanced at his food with a brief, appreciative smile; the renewed ability to taste food was one aspect of the human situation he didn't think he'd _ever _get tired of, and Sid's Chinese one of the best he'd ever had.

"This is _exactly _what I want," Bones said, studying the food before her with an appreciative smile. "This is amazing; the guy definitely has a knack."

"Oh, so you _do _take orders?" Hodgins added, looking at the dish before him with an appreciative smile.

"'Course we do," Sid said briefly. "But it's always better when you leave it to me. _Booth_," he added, indicating the photographs in frustration.

"OK, I'll take care of it," Booth said, turning his attention back to the conversation at hand as he nodded apologetically at the restaurant owner before he turned back to the others; maybe if he got the immediately-discussed facts of the case out of the way they could get back to a more normal dinner. "You're saying that the boy died like ten to fourteen days ago?"

"Hey," Hodgins replied, a lump of some kind of meat almost in his mouth as he looked over at Booth, "bugs buzz but they do not lie."

"Hodgins is very good at using insects to ascertain a time of death," Bones clarified as Hodgins

"How do you explain an e-mail that was sent seven days ago from Nova Scotia?" Booth asked, pulling out the e-mail print-out he'd received from the ambassador's office and handing it to the surprised-looking Bones.

"See?" he said, nodding briefly at the piece of paper in question as he turned his attention back to his food and began to cut it, unable to keep the satisfied, confident tone out of his voice. "Look at that. It stinks. Go ahead, smell it, you know you want to smell it; it stinks."

As he began chewing at his food, he tried to tune out the sound of Angela and Hodgins arguing about Hodgins's seven organ soup; right now, all he wanted to do was have a good meal _without _talking too much about disgusting corpses (Particularly after he'd spent so long as a creature where the only means of gaining sustenance was to _make _corpses; if that didn't make it difficult to have an appetite he didn't know what would)...

* * *

As Booth walked into the restaurant, his mind already drifting from the case and onto the more immediate matters of food- some of the stuff he saw in this business just freaked him out at times; the thought that a couple of kids not much older than Connor had been the last time he saw him could kill someone they knew _without _the excuse of a warped upbringing like what Connor had endured with Holtz in Quor-toth made him feel a bit sick-, he was almost grateful for the excuse to think about something different when he saw Zach and Angela sitting in the booth they'd used last time while Hodgins ate something at the bar.

"Oh no..." he muttered in frustration, only becoming more vocal as Bones walked over to join her team, prompting him to head over to the bar were Sid appeared to be writing out his latest decisions. "This isn't going to work; I mean, this is my _place_! Sid?"

"As long as they keep it down on the subject of rotten corpses and bodily fluids," Sid said, not looking up from what he was writing, "I have no beef at all."

"OK," Hodgins said, looking over at Booth in amazement as he stared at the food in front of him, "that is amazing. I had heartburn, I asked Sid to bring me something, and now the heartburn is gone- I mean, it's _gone_. Man, I _love _this place!"

"OK, fine," Booth said, shaking his head in frustration as he walked over to stand in front of the squints' booth. "New rules; that counter is mine; that booth is yours; everything else around here," he continued, waving his arms at the restaurant around him, ignoring the stares he was getting from the other diners at the restaurant, "mine; alright? M-I-N-E... _mine_."

As he sat down at the counter, he glanced over at Hodgins for a brief moment, the glare finally prompting the 'bug guy' to get up and leave the counter to join the other squints at the booth. Booth had just reached out to grab himself a plate of nuts and some salt for his main dish when Bones sat down beside him, a slight smile on her face as she looked at him.

"I've been thinking about your whole 'something stinks' aptitude," she said to him, as casually as if they were merely continuing an earlier conversation.

"Yeah?" Booth asked, as he began chewing on a small handful of nuts."

"I think you have a subconscious knack for reading body language, stress in the voice; other subtle but disconcernable indicators," Bones explained, smiling slightly at him as she spoke, unaware of the slight tension he felt as she reminded him of all the skills he'd acquired through over a century of hunting and killing...

"It's not mysterious," Bones continued, waving a hand as though she wanted to cut that train of thought off before he could get it started, "but it is impressive, and in the future I will try to accord it an appropriate degree of objective worth."

Despite the overly scientific way in which she'd paid him the compliment, Booth knew that he should be grateful; getting Bones to admit that any knowledge that hadn't been obtained at college was impressive was a minor miracle in itself.

"Thank you, Temperance," he said, smiling briefly at her as a plate with some kind of meat on it- he was surprisingly bad at remembering the names of some of the foods Sid gave him- in front of him. "I appreciate that."

It was only after he'd begun chewing on his food that he realised she was still sitting there.

"So," he said, forcing down the part of him that wanted her to remain- the whole point of his earlier speech had been to establish some _boundaries_, not encourage them- as he waved his hands over the counter, "which part of 'this is mine' did you not understand? What, do you want me to say it in Latin?"

"Abset invidia," Bones replied after a momentary pause, standing up and taking something out of her pocket before she walked back to the booth to join the other squints.

Glancing at the object she'd left behind, Booth couldn't stop a brief smile from crossing his face as he picked it up; his own access card for the Jeffersonian examination area.

"Nice..." he reflected, feeling unbelievably touched at the gesture.

He might not be a squint on paper, but it looked like he was one of the gang where it counted...

And, faced with this proof that he'd formed a new team- even if they'd mainly come together through official orders rather than their own free will-, it wasn't as scary as he'd thought it might be.


	5. The Man in the Bear

Disclaimer: I own neither Angel or anything associated with him, and "Bones" is equally out of my reach control-wise

Feedback: Appreciated

Angel of the Bones

As he began the drive down to Aurora, Booth could only wonder how he had allowed himself to get roped into this whole mess; going off to upper Washington State was potentially a good break, but when you factored in the reason why he was going up this way in the first place he was already in a relatively poor mood (Things being eaten were a bit of a sore spot with him).

"You know," he said after a short period of silence as the car continued down the road, "being cooped up in a crappy hotel in the middle of nowhere with a fifty dollar per diem is not my idea of a good time either, you know."

"You only get fifty dollars a day?" Bones asked, looking at him with a glance that was the closest thing to surprise he'd seen her show. "How can you live on that?"

"OK, what do you mean?" Booth asked, shooting a brief, impatient glance over at the forensic anthropologist; one of the most awkward aspects of his life as Booth was getting used to operating on a budget after he'd spent so long as a vampire lacking any real need for money (As Angelus he tended to just kill people to get what he wanted, and when he'd acquired his soul he'd generally drawn on just enough of Angelus's old accounts to survive during his 'good' decades- omitting obvious time periods such as his two-decade guilt streak after the doughnut shop incident- without ever going too far to outdo what he'd collect on insurance; acquiring an actual _budget _as Booth had been a bit of a shock). "What do you get?"

"I don't have a limit," Bones replied with a somewhat dismissive shrug. "I just give them the receipts."

"No," Booth said, wishing he could be certain he was right about this- he'd had enough trouble learning how to manage his own finances since becoming human to learn how it worked for experts like Bones-, "you _have _to have a limit; everyone has a limit, we work for the government-"

"I don't have a limit," Bones replied, in the same slightly confused tone she always used whenever she didn't fully understand what someone was saying to her.

"But it's not fair to the taxpayers!" Booth protested indignantly, remembering some of Cordelia's old rants about how some of the upper-class known to her parents had once lived. "You could get one of those... thousand-dollar toilet seats!"

"I imagine I'm treated differently from you because I have an indispensible skill," Bones replied, her nonchalantly confident tone briefly invoking memories of Wesley during the old days in Sunnydale (With the obvious exception that Bones's arrogance was actually _merited_ at this point).

"Oh, right; indispensable," he muttered, trying to regain control of the situation as he flicked his sunglasses back down over his eyes. "I do _not _need you."

"Oh, so you can determine the origin of the curf marks as well as the sex and age of the victim?" Bones asked, promptly bringing Booth back down to earth; once again, a casual comment from Bones had provided him with further reminder that he was no longer the unique combatant he'd been.

The odd thing was, he really didn't mind it when it came from her; one of the main reasons he was coming to like the anthropologist was that she treated him basically the same way before and after she'd learned about the people he'd killed...

If anything, their relationship had actually _improved _after she'd learned about the fact that he'd killed people; he still remembered the slight smile on her face as she'd commented that she'd like to help him with his 'cosmic balance sheet, even when she herself didn't believe in such a concept, as though she was grateful for him opening up to her like that...

"You know," he said, smiling slightly at her to distract himself from his previous thoughts, "you're a smart ass; you know that?"

"Objectively, I'd say I'm very smart, although it has nothing to do with my ass," Bones replied, smiling briefly at him.

"You know, I tell you what; you can take me out to dinner, hmm?" Booth continued, smiling briefly at her. "Put it on your tab."

"That doesn't seem ethical..." Bones said, shaking her head slightly uncertainly.

"You still want that gun now, don't ya?" he countered with a brief smile.

"We'll start with breakfast," Bones conceded after a brief pause.

No matter how he came by it, a free breakfast was a free breakfast; one thing he'd learned to appreciate since becoming human was the days when he could get a good meal without going nuts in his budget while at some fancy restaurant...

* * *

Staring at Bones as she sat in the passenger side of the sheriff's car, having just shared her latest findings from the analysis at the Jeffersonian with the two of them, Booth wondered if his hearing had started to go already (The aging thing was one aspect of humanity that he was really ambiguous about; it was nice not to have to worry about seeing everyone around him age while he remained frozen, but the physical effort he needed to keep his body operating at anything like its original 'standards' could get tricky).

"A _human _ate that guy at some point?" he said, looking incredulously at his partner; humans being eaten by things might not exactly be new to him, but he wasn't exactly familiar with the concept of someone doing that to another human being just because they wanted to rather than it being part of a dietary requirement of their species...

"Zach will have the odontologist at the Jeffersonian take a look, but I'm right," Bones confirmed, nodding at him.

"A cannibal," the sheriff repeated, looking uncomfortably at her despite the half-eaten sandwich that was still partly in his mouth. "You mean a... Hannibal Lecter-type deal?"

"I don't know what that means," Bones said, looking briefly back at the sheriff.

"And we're certain a human being gnawed on that bone?" Booth asked, waving a hand slightly to draw attention to the central issue, briefly reflecting once again on the irony of working with someone with less knowledge of popular culture than he had; even he'd heard of Thomas Harris's novels during his 'guilt phase'- as people who knew his history tended to refer to the years between him gaining his soul and meeting Buffy-, although he'd found Lecter's character to be too similar to Angelus for comfort given his culinary tastes and manipulative ability to relate to people.

"Bit, gnawed, removed the flesh," Bones said, her tone demonstrating an almost disturbingly vampire nonchalance as she shrugged off any concerns about specifics of the relevant terms.

"That's... that's really not good," the sheriff muttered, looking at his sandwich in evident distaste.

"Are you sure, Bones?" Booth asked, hoping that he wasn't dealing with what the current facts suggested; cannibalism was too close to his own past crimes for him to be fully comfortable with this situation. "You've never seen anything like this before-"

"Of course I've seen this before," Bones replied dismissively. "I did grad work among the Warri of the Amazon; they have a long history of cannibalism. I've also seen evidence of cannibalism in some 12th century Native American sites. It's not a big deal."

"Have you ever...?" the sheriff asked, pointing uncertainly at his mouth as he looked uncomfortably at Bones.

"I've never been offered human flesh before," Bones replied.

"But... what if you had?" Booth asked in a low voice, almost hoping Bones wouldn't answer; the implications if she said yes were _really _disturbing...

"It's an interesting question," Bones replied, nodding in a brief, thoughtful manner. "I would have to measure my own social inclination against scientific inquiry."

"OK..." Booth said after a moment's pause, noting the equally-disturbed expression on the sheriff's face. "That's sick."

"You know, maybe we're looking for someone who needs to be rescued," Bones continued, completely ignoring his discomfort. "Maybe... the young man died, and the missing girl, hungry and lost, came upon him; needing food, she-"

"Sawed him up... and... barbequed him," the sheriff finished, looking over at her apprehensively as Booth removed his sunglasses to study one of the 'Missing' posters of the girl in question.

"There was no evidence that the hand was cooked," Bones responded, looking uncertainly at the sheriff as though wondering if he knew something she didn't.

"She does _not_ look like the type of girl that would chew on raw flesh," Booth put in, shaking his head at that train of thought; the last thing he wanted was to start suspecting an innocent girl of willingly resorting to cannibalism.

"You would be surprised," Bones replied with a nod, ignoring the slight sound of the sheriff apparently swallowing back the urge to vomit. "When survival instincts kick in-"

"OK," Booth cut in, putting the poster back inside the car, "if it isn't her, then we're dealing with some psycho cannibal killer."

"This is sick..." the sheriff muttered

Booth couldn't help but agree with that assessment, and matters weren't helped when Bones pointed out that someone eating human flesh would _get _sick; why someone would eat something that would make them ill he didn't know and wasn't sure he wanted to learn.

The spiritual depravity he'd witnessed as Angel as Wolfram & Hart lawyers were willing to literally sign away their souls for power had been sick, but at least they knew they were getting something out of the deal- even if he hadn't agreed with their decisions-; what this person was doing was just... _disgusting_.

* * *

"Look," the sheriff said, as they approached the park ranger's house a few hours later, the new information about the victim's possible identity having led them to the ranger in question, "I've known Sherman for years; I can't believe he'd have anything to do with this."

Booth simply stood in silence alongside Bones as the sheriff knocked on the door before them, the overweight form of the park ranger coming to the door shortly afterwards.

"Hey sheriff," Sherman replied.

"Hey, Sherman," the sheriff responded, removing his hat as he walked through the door. "Mind if we come in?"

"You guys here about the cannibal?" Sherman asked nonchalantly as Booth and Bones followed the sheriff in.

"We can't talk about official business," the sheriff replied briefly before either of the others could react. "How's about some tea?"

"Sure," Sherman said, closing the door and heading off to the kitchen as the sheriff sat down in a nearby chair.

"What did you do that for?" Booth asked, leaning over to whisper at the sheriff.

"Give you a chance to look around, get a sense of the man," the sheriff replied, waving his hand briefly as he leant back in the chair and closed his eyes.

"The raven spirit," Bones said, indicating a sculpture above the fireplace before Booth could begin his own search. "In some Native American stories it has a cannibalistic elem-"

Further conversation was cut off at the sound of a bang in the kitchen, a brief glance all Booth needed to confirm his theory about what had happened.

"He went out back," he said, glancing over in frustration at the sheriff. "Give me your flashlight."

"No way you'll catch Sherman Rivers in the woods," the sheriff replied, his nonchalance as he tossed the flashlight over to Booth leaving the ex-vampire frustrated even as he ran out of the hut.

"Just search the place!" he yelled back at the hut, diving into the darkened woods, the flashlight shining ahead of him, wishing that he'd retained his vampiric senses in the transition back to human; his night vision might be good by human standards, but his vampire eyes had naturally evolved to cope with far less light than this...

"Sherman, _stop_!" he yelled, knowing that it was a futile effort even as he spoke but needing to try nevertheless as he tried to spot the man he was currently chasing, the only sign of his presence being a sudden splashing sound as he ran through what seemed to be a narrow stream of some kind.

"STOP!" he yelled again, aiming his gun at Sherman as he drew in closer to his target, only for Sherman to run off into a deeper part of the wood before he could do anything with it.

"You gotta be kidding me..." Booth muttered as the flashlight died, frustrated beyond belief at the way this whole mess had turned out.

There were definitely times where he felt like he might have been better remaining Shanshu-less; he could have _definitely _caught that guy if he was still a vampire...

* * *

Sitting in their selected bar after Rigby's capture and imprisonment, Booth made a mental note to check if there was some scientific term for what seemed to occupy most of Bones's thoughts when he got back; thinking this much about murders could _not _be healthy.

"And to think," Bones said, as she finished stirring her coffee, "I didn't want to come here with you. I mean, this was a fascinating case; you don't often find ritual cannibalism practiced so close to home-"

"Which I find a plus-" Booth commented, tipping salt over his eggs.

"There are always those individuals within a species who are driven to break the most basic taboos," Bones continued, as though he'd never spoken in the first place. "I mean, Rigby actually ate human flesh-"

"Bones," Booth protested, swallowing down the urge to throw up at the reference- even Angelus had never been wild about cannibalism, preferring to drink the blood rather than chew on the flesh, but as Booth it almost made him physically ill-, "I just got my steak and eggs-"

"Rigby has a prion disease which means he's been a cannibal for quite some time," Bones continued, actually taking a sip of orange juice as she spoke. "Do you realize when we go to trial he could use the insanity defence?"

"The guy _is _nuts-" Booth pointed out (Why couldn't the woman take a hint; even at her worst Cordelia had at least _acknowledged _what others were talking about even if she only responded enough to cut them off from anything that wasn't about her).

"Yes," Bones confirmed with a brief yet broad smile, "but is it nuts because he got a brain disease from eating human flesh, _or_ was he already nuts the first time he ate flesh, _or_ did he just lick his fingers after surgery?"

"I should just become a vegetarian..." Booth muttered, pushing his plate away and sipping at his coffee.

"Or, as an alternative, just don't eat people," Bones said casually.

Taking advantage of the momentary silence, Booth reached over to apply ketchup to his food- at least the texture didn't _look _like blood- before continuing with his meal.

"You know," Bones continued, taking a forkful of her own food, "I'm going come back up here this winter; Charlie says the skiing is great."

"Oh, _Charlie_?" Booth repeated.

"Yeah, the overnight guy," Bones said by way of explanation.

"I know who he is..." Booth replied, allowing himself a briefly amused grin at her unawareness of his own thoughts (And something he _really _didn't want to consider when things with Tessa were currently at least stable).

"I bet he's a great skier," Bones said, as she took a quick mouthful. "His hips and thighs are perfectly developed for strength and maneuverability."

Booth wasn't sure what frustrated him more as he pushed his plate away; the fact that Bones could make a comment like that and realistically regard it as a compliment, or the fact that she genuinely didn't realise how a statement like that could sound to other people.

There were times when he really wondered what he'd done to become love's bitch...

Then he wondered where _that _thought had come from.


	6. A Boy in a Bush

Disclaimer: I own neither Angel or anything associated with him, and "Bones" is equally out of my reach control-wise

Feedback: Appreciated

Angel of the Bones

There were definitely times when Booth wondered why he'd wanted to become human for so long, and the current case was unquestionably one of them; the thought of someone being capable of _killing_ a little kid like Charlie Sanders just made him feel almost as ill as he had when he realised Wolfram & Hart had been trying to trick him into killing Connor by 'spicing' his glasses of blood...

Ironically, the current avenue of investigation he was pursuing- studying camera footage of the mall where Charlie had last been seen- helped him almost draw back from the issue; looking for the kid like this was still a bit ghoulish, but video images had never entirely had the same effect on him as actual corpses (Possibly because a part of him still remembered the days when images of people were just paintings; it helped him 'draw back' from the reality of what he was seeing and focus more on the visual implications than the thought that he was watching the last actions of a dead kid).

"There are twenty surveillance cameras taking stills every two seconds throughout the mall including access corridors and parking lots," Angela explained, drawing his attention back to the issue at hand as she moved the mouse to indicate the images on the computer monitor in front of Bones as he stood behind them. "I concentrated on the ones aimed at the public concourse."

"OK..." he said, looking uncertainly at the shots before him. "Ten thousand people a day go through that mall; how are we going to find one small kid?"

"Angela designed a mass recognition program to apply body types to skeletal remains," Bones answered, standing up to better indicate the diagram currently on screen, displaying a green transparent body with various arrows around it that presumably indicated something Booth didn't understand at this point.

"Endomorph, Ectomorph, Mesomorph… that sort of thing," Angela said, shaking her head dismissively as one of the camera feeds on the computer screen was suddenly enlarged as the computer apparently began to scan the image for one of the kids. "I modified it to scan two dimensional images; in this case, we're looking for body masses roughly congruent with Charlie, Sean, and David; there's David," she added, indicating a highlighted body on the current screen, standing beside a girl near what looked like a jewellery stall.

Booth wasn't sure what shocked him more; the fact that Angela- the one he'd always seen as the 'normal' squint in the same way that Gunn and Xander had always been the 'normal' members of his and Buffy's teams- could sound so 'squint-ish', or the fact that he was suddenly reminded of Fred.

It wasn't immediately obvious, of course- Fred had lacked any kind of serious _artistic _talent and had definitely been a lot less assertive than Angela was when it came to relationships-, but the similarities were there, particularly in their similarly-loose clothing styles (Even if Angela tended to show more skin than Fred)...

"You're actually one of them, aren't you?" he said, deciding that the first thought was the safer one to voice right now.

"One of who?" Angel asked, glancing briefly back at him.

"A squint," Booth answered, ignoring Bones's brief glance back at him as he spoke. "I mean, you look normal, and you act normal, but... you're actually one of them."

"This whole mass recognition program was Brennan's idea," Angela replied briefly, her eyes remaining fixed on the screen as she spoke. "I'm completely normal, really."

"Yeah, maybe before you got this job," Booth said, shrugging slightly as he looked at her. "But now..."

"I see Charlie," Bones said after a moment's pause, pointing at a green figure on the screen walking by a shop window.

"That's him alright..." Booth muttered, staring intently at the small boy before him, suddenly not that much bigger than Parker (Estimating height from the bodies he brought Bones to ID was never something he was comfortable doing; he was never certain how much muscle and skin had to play in height)...

"Oh God..." Angela whispered, her voice so low Booth almost didn't hear her.

"Ang?" Bones asked, looking over at her friend. "Are you OK?"

"These are probably the last pictures of this little... guy alive," the artist said in a low voice. "Why is he alone? Why isn't anyone with him?"

Booth was about to say something when Angela sighed.

"I'm sorry," she said simply, as she reached over to tap at the keyboard. "The max resolution is 640 by 480 pixels per square inch..."

"Ah, wait," Booth said, staring intently at the screen as it showed Charlie running towards someone concealed from the camera by a large red banner hanging down from the room. "He's not alone, someone's calling him over? Can't you just zoom in?"

"The fewer pixels that make up an image the more the picture degrades once we zoom in on it," Angela explained, before she exhaled uncomfortably. "Did that sound too squinty?"

"Any way to enhance it?" Bones asked, clearly trying to bring the conversation back to a more relevant discussion than definitions of 'squint-ness'.

"I wouldn't bet a date with Colin Farrell on it," Angela replied.

"I know him," Bones said, pointing at Angela with a slightly satisfied tone in her voice, clearly relieved to have understood a pop culture reference for once. "He's funny."

"Funny is Will Ferrell, sweetie," Angela replied with a slightly exasperated tone as though she'd had this and similar arguments with Bones before. "_Hot _is Colin Farrell."

"Alright," Booth said, indicating the screen as Charlie began to run towards somebody else, concealed from the camera view behind a red mall flag of some kind, "look, the kid is definitely moving towards someone, alright? He wasn't struggling, he wasn't trying to get away- you know," he added, a thought occurring to him after the recent interviews, "I want to add the neighbourhood kid, Skyler Nelson, to the list of possible suspects."

"I have one other angle," Angela said, tapping the keyboard to shift the view to another, higher camera even as her tone reflected her uncertainty about the usefulness of her latest contribution, "but our bad guy's still obstructed in it."

Staring at the screen showing the soon-to-be-deceased Charlie Brooks walking off with an unseen figure who was almost certainly his murderer, Booth wondered who the Hell could be sick enough to do something like that to a _kid_...

* * *

"OK," Booth said as he walked into one of the Jeffersonian's computer labs, his eyes instantly falling on Zach and Angela sitting in front of the screen, "anything on the identity of Charlie's abductor?"

"I can't clear up this image any more than it is," Angela said, indicating the screen's current image of what looked like part of the back of somebody's head being concealed by something else, indicating Zach with a brief wave of her hand as she began typing once again. "Tell Booth what you told me about living in Hodgins's garage."

"There's a bedroom, living room, kitchen, another bedroom, a den, two bathrooms-" Zach began, his neutral tone not giving any hint about whether or not he found the garage he was describing to be excessive in any regard.

"OK," Booth said, increasingly unnerved at the description of a property scale that sounded far more expensive than someone should be able to afford after spending their days going through slime, dirt and bugs, "great, quite a garage; can we focus on the case?"

"How many cars does he have in that garage?" Angela asked, apparently preferring this new mystery to their original one (Of course, Booth had to admit that the chance of getting information about Hodgins _was _looking like it would be more likely than their chances of getting information about Charlie's killer...).

"Including the antique ones, about twelve," Zach replied. "_And _a boat."

"Zach has never seen the main house because the tennis courts and the pond block the view," Angela added, looking back at Booth with a brief smile.

"Whoa..." Booth muttered, an explanation for the inconsistency between Hodgins's profession and his living accommodations suddenly occurring to him. "He must be one of _those _Hodgins's."

"Who are those Hodgins's?" Zach asked.

"The Cantilever group Hodgins," Booth answered (He hoped he'd gotten the name right, anyway; he'd found a few files on the Cantilever group both from some old FBI case files and a couple of forms at Wolfram & Hart- he'd focused more on demon law while leaving Gunn to deal with the human issues, but that didn't mean he'd neglected his human clients-, but it had been a while since he'd studied anything about them in depth).

"Oh my God..." Angela whispered, after a moment's silence as the other two processed this revelation.

"The same Cantilever group that generates more G&P than Europe?" Zach asked.

"Get this," Angela added. "They're the single biggest donors to the Jeffersonian Institution."

"Ha!" Booth said, unable to stop himself from grinning broadly at the implications of that particular bit of news. "That makes Hodgins your _boss_!"

The laugh trailed off somewhat as Zach and Angela looked back at him with an expression that made him feel momentarily like he'd said something stupid, but that thought passed almost as soon as it had come as another laugh at the sheer humour of the situation passed his lips.

"What do you guys even talk about when he drives you to work?" Angela asked, once against working at her keyboard as though the brief revelation hadn't happened.

"I mostly sleep," Zach replied, as the camera footage on the screen shifted to show people walking glass doors. "Hodgins mostly yells at the radio."

"OK," Booth said, a thought occurring to him as he looked at the new image- possibly inspired by his own increased awareness of his reflection; ever since he'd regained his humanity that was one feature that had always slightly caught him off-guard whenever he saw it-, "if you can't see the guy's face, maybe you could grab a reflection?"

There was a moment's silence, and then Zach turned around to look at him.

"That's a workable idea," he said, his tone expressing some slight incredulity.

"Well," Booth said, unable to keep the discomfort out of his voice, "I'd say 'thanks'... you know, if you didn't say it like it was some kind of a _miracle_."

He tried to shrug it off as Angela looked at him with a brief smile before she turned back to the computer, but he couldn't help but feel slightly resentful of it; he might be helping people in his new life, but he really wished that the people he spent the most time with recently actually recognised more often that he was more than just the guy with the badge who got them into places...

* * *

As he walked into the lab where Bones currently stood silently staring at Charlie's bones, Booth tried not to look too closely at the small bones on the table before him; the image invoked too many memories of Parker for his comfort, particularly after the way things had fallen apart with Connor in his old life...

"Bones," he said, trying to focus on the reason he'd come to this room in the first place, "I thought you'd like to know, Sean and David are in emergency care. I pulled some strings, made sure that they... get to stay together."

"That's good, thanks," Bones replied, not even looking up at him as she wrote something on her clipboard.

"Best I could do," Booth continued, wishing she'd react more to his statement.

"Yeah, I understand," Bones replied in the same tone as before.

"You _say _you understand, but you don't, not really," Booth said, his patience rapidly approaching breaking point as he turned back to her, placing his hand on the table as he spoke; he vaguely registered something breaking, but didn't pay much attention to it. "I mean, if you don't like the rule, you ignore it, right? I can't have that, and if you want to do this-"

"Do what?" Bones asked as she removed her gloves.

"Work on cases; you know, with me outside the lab?" Booth elaborated (He knew it was slightly hypocritical of him to be talking about the law after he'd spent so long operating outside it, but that was when he was dealing with the supernatural; his old enemies had completely _existed _outside the law, but his current ones required a more legal approach). "If you want to do that, I _need _to know that you will respect the law."

"Tell you what," Bones said, looking downwards for a moment before looking back at him, "if I can't respect the law, I can at least respect you."

"Oh," Booth said, momentarily embarrassed at the anthropologist's statement as he tried to collect himself- he wasn't used to people saying that they specifically had faith in _him_ since Cordelia had paid him that final visit-, "yeah, that'll work too. I mean, it kind of comes out of nowhere, but..."

He trailed off as he noticed Bones staring at his right hand as it rested on the desk, prompting him to glance down and note that his hand was resting on a wooden pencil that had been broken into three pieces when he'd pressed down on it.

"Look what you did..." she said, in a low voice that could have meant anything when attached to that sentence.

"It's a pencil," Booth said in confusion. "I'll get you a new one..."

"The victim was killed by trauma to the chest," Bones continued, turning back to thoughtfully study the skeleton lying on the table behind her, "but the ribs are broken in two places, not just one."

"Because of the, uh..." Booth said, faltering for a moment as he tried to remember the technical term- back when he'd been Angel multiple broken bones was an indicator of the strength of the demon they were hunting rather than physical weakness this kind of thing was never necessity-, "brittle bones, because of his disease-"

"Well, that was my assumption, but there's another explanation," Bones said, moving to leave the lab only to be halted as he stepped in front of her.

"OK, whoa," he said, holding up a hand to halt her progress, "what's the other explanation?"

"Compression," Bones replied briefly before walking past him out into the hallway, leaving him to simply follow on after her.

"Alright, Charlie Sanders was _crushed _to death?" he asked, wondering what was more terrible; the fact that someone could do that to a kid, or the fact that he could imagine what kind of mentality could do something like that for _fun_...

"Yes, greenstick fractures retebral and sternal," Bones replied, turning to face him with the pencil in her hand. "See?"

"All right," Booth said, trying to get the situation back on target, "Sean Cook outweighed Charlies Sanders by about what; maybe thirty pounds? How could he have crushed him to death?"

"Angela," Bones said, calling the artist over to talk to her as they walked, "we need to run some scenarios through the Angelanator."

Booth was just moving to walk after Bones when the sounds of Hodgins calling them prompted him and Angela to stop walking, turning around to see the shorter man running up behind them with a slightly urgent expression.

"Zach has been informed that if he tells anyone who I am that I will kick him out on the street like a stray dog," Hodgins said in a low voice, audible to Booth and Angela while remaining out of earshot of anyone passing them by. "Sadly, there's nothing I can threaten you two with."

"Yeah, that's a shame," Angela said; Booth wondered how Hodgins would react if he knew what kind of threats Booth was capable of putting into action if he wanted to...

"What I want out of my life," Hodgins continued, "is to come in here and sift through slime and bugs. Unfortunately, my family is one of those who secretly run the world."

"Paranoia and delusions of grandeur all in one package..." Booth muttered with a reflectively amused smile as he turned around and walked off towards the lab with Angela.

"You call it paranoia, I call it the family business- please, could you just stop?!" Hodgins called after them, prompting both of them to turn back around and look at Hodgins again.

"The reason that I do not want to go to that banquet," the entomologist continued, looking almost pleading between Booth and Angela, ""is because the other members of the ruling elite will make a big fuss about seeing me. My secret will be out and my life…this life that I love, will be ruined. I'm asking you, please… please just let me be Jack Hodgins who works in the lab."

Despite the complete lack of resemblance between the two, as he looked at the smaller man before him, Booth couldn't help but suddenly be reminded of himself back on his first 'stint' as a human.

Admittedly, he might have 'acted out' against his family in a more extreme manner than Hodgins was- he'd rebelled by going out, getting plastered and having lots of sex while Hodgins rebelled by spending his spare time examining mud, slime, crap and bugs-, but the point remained fundamentally valid; both of them had been born into lives that neither of them had wanted and that they'd constantly sought to escape.

As he and Angela walked away, Booth made a mental note to see if he could arrange something to keep Hodgins occupied the night of the banquet...

* * *

"We have him cold," Booth said as he walked into Bones's office later that night, the results of the tests on Nelson's insecticide equipment combined with Sean Cook's testimony having provided everything they needed to put the man away. "The insecticide he was using on the termites matches the Fluoride concentration perfectly. Skyler's dad admitted everything."

"Don't tell me," Bones said, studying the file on her hands with a grimly negative tone to her voice as she walked around behind her desk. "He said crushing Charlie to death was a mistake."

"He never abused Sean Cook; he just used him to get near Charlie," Booth continued, trying to push thoughts of the man's motives to the back of his mind; Angelus might have tortured and killed kids when he was younger, but even he'd never gone as far as sexual assault (Although in Angelus's case that was because he'd never understood the appeal as far as what _he _was supposed to get out of it rather than any actual morality). "It played out just like you said; he had Charlie out in that field, some teenage kids they come by so he knelt on Charlie to keep him from crying out. Sean got scared, he ran back to his brother."

"Charlie was small and weak," Bones concluded as she turned to look at him, sorrow evident on her face at the thought of that little boy who would now never have the chance to grow up. "His sternum collapsed...."

As she sat down at her desk, Bones was silent for a moment before she continued again. "You think he abused any other kids?"

"Yeah," Booth said grimly, wishing there was some way he could erase that thought from his mind. "Probably his own son."

"You report that to child services?" Bones asked, still staring at her screen.

"Mmm," Booth nodded briefly. "Trying to get the kid some help... and I'm sorry."

"For what?" Bones asked, looking at him with a gaze that looked like she was fighting back the urge to cry.

"You have personal experience in the system," he said by way of explanation.

For a moment there was simply silence in the office, until Bones finally spoke.

"I was a foster child," she said, slowly and uncertainly, clearly uncomfortable with this topic even if she was still discussing it, "until my grandfather got me out."

"Yeah..." Booth continued, partly uncertain if he should continue this line of inquiry but simultaneously sensing that stopping now would prevent this topic ever coming up again, "when you said... they take you away from your brother... I kind of had the feeling you weren't talking about David Cook."

"Booth," Bones said after a moment's pause, standing up from her seat even as she continued to stare at the computer screen before her, "I'll tell you all about it one day, but tonight, I have to get dressed for a party."

"OK, Bones," Booth replied, turning to leave in the knowledge that he'd already received all the information he was going to get out of her for tonight.

"By the way," Bones added, her voice now its usual, more casual tone, "there's a huge ding in my passenger side door because you told me not to park it at an angle."

Despite himself, Booth couldn't help but chuckle slightly at that news.

"OK, that's just mean!" Bones yelled, standing up sharply to stare at him, the tension from earlier pushed aside as though it had never been. "You're mean!"

"Sorry," Booth replied as he walked out, unable to stop himself from chuckling as he did so; the image of a world-renowned forensic anthropologist acting like a little kid calling another kid a 'meanie' was just _too _amusing for words...


	7. A Man in a Wall

Disclaimer: I own neither Angel or anything associated with him, and "Bones" is equally out of my reach control-wise

Feedback: Appreciated

Angel of the Bones

Standing silently in his office as he turned over the latest case in his mind, briefly skimming over the file in his hands without fully taking it in, Booth wondered how long it would be before he actually figured out what he was dealing with this time around. It seemed like a relatively straightforward drugs case so far- DJ Mount got caught up in drug dealings and it ended up becoming bigger than he'd initially anticipated-, but if he'd learned anything from that incident with the Prio Motu demon guardian it was that he couldn't afford to form split-second assessments when people's lives were involved...

"Agent Booth?" a voice said, prompting him to turn around and take in the new arrival; a dark-skinned man in his forties dressed in a dark green jacket and a light blue shirt, carrying what looked like an old shoebox.

"Yeah?" he asked.

"I'm Roy Taylor's father," the man said, his gaze remaining fixed on the agent before him. "Maybe you know him as DJ Mount?"

"Mr Taylor," Booth replied, nodding briefly at him in acknowledgement. "Please come in."

"Thank you for seeing me," Mr Taylor replied as he walked into the room.

"Please, sit," Booth continued, sitting down behind his desk as Mr Taylor sat down opposite him.

"You're the one looking into my son's murder?" he asked.

"Investigating his death, yes, sir," Booth replied, taking care to phrase it diplomatically; even on his worst days as Angel, he'd known that telling someone outright that you believed their son had died because of their own mistakes was never a good start. "I'm... sorry for your loss."

"I have some information you need," Mr Taylor said after a moment's silence.

"About your son's death?" Booth asked curiously.

"No sir," Mr Taylor replied, placing the shoebox he'd been carrying on Booth's desk. "About his life. I've been reading in the newspaper how my son was part of the meth scene. How he was killed by drugs behind a wall... like that."

Pausing for a moment as he opened the box, Mr Taylor removed a picture frame and placed it on the desk before Booth, revealing a young man dressed for a graduation holding a diploma with a broad smile on his face (The resemblance to the image Angela had produced with the Angelator was uncanny; Booth could _never _get used to technology's ability to do something like that).

"What my son _did_," Mr Taylor continued, staring pointedly at Booth as he spoke, "was graduate third in his class from high school. He would of graduated first, except he..."

He paused for a moment, briefly lost in painful memories before he continued. "He worked a full time job."

Reaching back into the box, he removed a few medal and placed them on the desk, followed by a small trophy.

"Track and field medals, baseball," he said by way of explanation, indicating the items in question. "Roy never drank, and he _never _did drugs. Do you understand me, sir?"

"Mr Taylor..." Booth began; a father's defence of his son was a fine thing in theory, but he'd learned the hard way during that mess with Connor that sometimes children could let you down no matter how hard you tried.

"How they are portraying my boy in the newspapers is wrong!" Mr Taylor said, his tone making it clear that he would accept no argument. "If his mother was alive it would kill her. I taught him a relationship with Jesus. Do you understand, sir? A _personal _relationship with Jesus."

"With all due respect, sir," Booth began- he wasn't sure if he was talking about his relationship with Connor before he'd had the spell cast or his own relationship with _his _father (Liam's father rather than Seeley's; Seeley had left home to stay with his grandfather as soon as he could)-, "sometimes when kids grow up, they change, they move away from what they were taught-"

Holding up a finger to halt Booth mid-sentence, Mr Taylor reached back into the box and pulled out a small, blue ceramic hand-print, holding it up so that it was facing Booth.

"Five years old, he made this," Mr Taylor explained, looking at the small ceramic with a grim smile. "And a lady who reads palms, she looked at it and she said..."

He paused for a moment, evidently fighting the need to cry as he thought of the son that he'd lost, before he continued speaking. "She said my boy was going to be a great man... a _good _man... she read no evil in that boy's hand."

Taking the ceramic for a moment, Booth briefly stared at it- palm-reading wasn't something he'd ever put in any faith in whatever name he was going by at the time, but Mr Taylor's sheer _faith _in his son was something that he couldn't exactly overlook- before he looked back at the man before him with a brief, solemn nod.

"I can see that now, sir," he said simply.

He might have seen and told so many lies in his long lifetime, but there were some things that you just couldn't fake, and this man's clear faith in his son was one of them.

"Some inequity killed my boy," Mr Taylor said after a moment's pause, tears trickling down his face as he spoke. "You know that word, Agent Booth? It's from the Bible."

"Deliver me... from the workers of inequity... and save me from bloody men," Booth recalled, passing the ceramic back to Mr Taylor as he recalled the words he'd first heard so long ago, in a church service he'd had no interest in attending due to the expectations it created that he had no plans to fulfil...

He might have been a failure back when he was first alive at living up to his father's expectations, but that was because they'd mainly been _forced _on him rather than just taught to him.

"You know your Psalms, sir," Mr Taylor said, taking the ceramic back and putting it away with a brief sniff before he looked resolutely back at Booth. "I can trust that you will find out what happened to my boy."

"Yes sir," Booth replied with a brief nod.

With the evident faith this man had had in his son taken into account...

It might not be _impossible _for the original theory to be the correct one, but it was almost certainly a lot less likely than it had been.

Maybe if he'd had a father like Mr Taylor back when he'd been Liam, he wouldn't have ended up dead...

* * *

As he shrugged on his new shirt that Tessa had brought for him- vampirism had actually been a lot easier on his daily wardrobe, really; he might have occasionally ended up with holes in a fight, but sweat had been one of the bodily functions his body _didn't _continue after its physical demise-, Booth was only partly paying attention to Angela's current interest in his and Tessa's current holiday plans as they discussed the situation in the Jeffersonian 'lounge'.

"Jamacia?" Angela said to Tessa as he began to button up his shirt (Givn his current relationship with Tessa and Angela's own rather liberal attitude, being shy about anything seemed rather superfluous at this point). "God, that's incredible."

"Mmm," Tessa nodded slightly in agreement. "It's a bed and breakfast. There are these coral reefs..."

"Snorkling, kayaking..." Booth added, looking upwards slightly wistfully at the thought; the whole tale about running water being anathema to vampires might be a myth- unless the water was blessed, of course; that trick Buffy had done in Vegas when she had a priest bless the water in the sprinkler system to take out a casino full of vampires had definitely been a _very _original solution to the problem-, but it wasn't exactly practical to do either of those things at night, so he'd never been able to participate in those activities as a vampire...

"Oh, you two are so ready for the pre-shacking up test vacation," Angela said, smiling at them.

"What do you mean?" Booth asked, his mind briefly flashing back to any conversation he'd had with Buffy, Cordelia or Willow- the only person he'd felt remotely comfortable discussing his relationship with Buffy with back in the old days in Sunnydale- regarding relationships; had he missed a rule or something about vacations?

"You have keys to each other's places," Angela explained. "You've done the weekend away a couple of times. Yeah, it's time for the ten day vacation. You know, Jamaica is like a dry run for living together only with Rum punch and steel drums."

With that last- and in Booth's opinion random- comment, Angela turned and walked off, leaving Booth and Tessa looking awkwardly between the departing artist and each other; Booth definitely didn't recall _anyone _mentioning that 'rule' back in his time as Angel, but then again he'd never gone further than having someone over for the weekend when he was dating Buffy and Nina...

"Living together... that's silly," Tessa said, looking back at him and drawing his attention back to the moment.

"Thanks," Booth began, before realising that his current response- thanking her for her lack of interest in moving in; he didn't want to act like the idea was _bad_, he just wasn't sure about it _yet_- could be taken the wrong way and changing it to, "...for bringing me a shirt."

"Yeah, OK," Tessa said. "I'll talk to you later."

With that, Tessa turned around and walked off down another exit, exchanging brief hellos with Bones before she continued towards the stairs, Bones walking into the lounge to join him.

"It's Eve Warren," she said.

"Eve Warren," Booth repeated, slinging his tie around his neck and grabbing his jacket as he followed Bones towards the lab. "OK, cause of death?"

"Same as Mount," Bones replied.

"Meth overdose?"

"Pushed in the face," Bones confirmed. "But there's more; I don't think that Rulz killed her."

"She was buried under his studio," Booth began, wondering what he was missing to allow for that statement to make sense.

"But her wrists were broken," Bones responded, which left Booth no further along in understanding what Bones was talking about even as he continued walking after her, hoping that she'd elaborate on that last, seemingly irrelevant statement sooner rather than later...

* * *

"You did not murder Eve Warren," Bones said as she walked around the interview table to stand opposite DJ Rulz, the former prime suspect in the case whose likelihood of being the killer was rapidly going downhill in Booth's eyes.

"This is a weird kind of interrogation, huh?" Rulz said with a brief grin. "Cops telling me what I didn't do?"

"Well then," Booth said, a slight smile on his face as he walked up- this guy might think he was good at twisting words in his own way, but Angelus had been a _master _at making people think and say what they didn't want to-, "do me a favour; tell me Bones is wrong and confess to a murder, huh?"

"Hell no, man," Rulz said, staring at him incredulously. "What; you think I'm some type of _idiot_?"

"Well, do me a favour, deny it," Booth countered.

"Ah, see, you got tricks," Rulz said, pointing at Booth with an 'enlightened' smile. "You're going to twist all my words around, so I better not say anything at all."

"You didn't kill Eve Warren," Bones repeated.

"So you say," Rulz said, folding his arms as he stared silently ahead of himself. "The Rulz says, say nothing."

Booth couldn't stop himself from laughing slightly as he realised what Rulz was doing here, memories of Gunn's comments about rap music- he hadn't listened to it much but when you lived in the same building as someone for the better part of three years you tended to pick things up even without vampiric hearing- automatically springing to mind.

"He wants us to hold him," he said with an amused grin.

"Why?" Bones asked in confusion.

"Why?" Booth repeated, smiling over at her. "Because every time some rapper gets murdered his business goes straight through the roof."

"You know, why should DJ Mount get the bump, huh?" Rulz said, nodding slightly at Booth in confirmation. "Maybe it's my turn."

"I'll tell you what," Booth said, hoping he remembered Gunn's comments on rappers accurately, "I'll make you a better deal. You tell us what we need to know and I'll have those charges laid against you; put you in the Remand center."

"For how long?" Rulz asked with a brief smile.

"Well, that depends on what you tell us-" Booth replied.

"Wait, wait," Bones said, looking between the two in confusion. "You're negotiating to put this guy _in _jail?"

"I'll sweeten the pot and charge you with Mount's death too," Booth added as he sat on the edge of the table, ignoring Bones for the moment, "but you hire one of those moron lawyers and you'll be thrown in lockup for, what, maybe a month?"

"Sweet," Rulz replied with a smile.

"What am I, in backwards world?" Bones asked in frustration (Booth made a note to compliment her on that last statement; that was the most non-squinty phrase he'd heard her use yet that he could recall).

"What do you got?" Booth asked.

"Look," Rulz replied, "I could tell you all why Mount got killed but you all have to figure out the rest on your own."

"We have to figure it out just from motive?" Bones asked, sitting down in the seat at the opposite side of the interview table as though trying to collect herself.

"Hey, Bones," Booth said, turning to look at her in slight frustration, "this is, y'know, sorta my thing."

As Bones lowered her eyes in acknowledgement of the last statement, Booth turned back to look at Rulz, hoping that this gambit would pay off.

"Mount was gonna jump," Rulz said.

"You mean commit suicide?" Bones cut in, prompting Rulz to shoot her the same 'are you dumb?' expression Booth had grown so used to experiencing in the early days of his partnership with Bones before he turned to Booth.

"Where did you find her?" he asked incredulously.

"Museum," Booth replied briefly, prompting Rulz to nod in understanding before he turned back to look at Bones.

"I mean _labels_," he stated. "Jump _labels_."

Booth couldn't help but laugh sceptically at that response; it was such a simple explanation he couldn't believe it hadn't occurred earlier.

"You're saying that DJ Mount was going to leave Basement Records?" he asked.

"Look," Rulz said with a shrug, "all he needed was the money to buy himself back, that's why he got himself killed. Now if Hall even finds out that I told you all that much, I'm going to end up some dried out mummy in a wall."

"But what about Eve?" Bones asked.

"Man, Eve couldn't kill nobody," Rulz replied with an incredulous smile. "Y'know, sex 'em to death, maybe, but that's about it. Oh, and there's one more thing; the next day, Hall built me a new studio. He took it out of my money too."

Booth had to admit, that part about the timing of the construction of the studio _did _seem too providential to be coincidental...

"So, you gonna put me in jail?" Rulz asked after a brief pause.

"Hey, well, you know what?" Booth replied, exchanging a satisfied nod with Rulz as he spoke. "It's the least we can do."

They had a motive, and they _definitely _had enough for a suspect; all they needed now was a reason to question the suspect...

* * *

"Yeah, we know you did it," Booth said, lounging on a couch in Hall's club as he idly scanned through a magazine in front of him, keeping a peripheral note of Bones's presence in his mind as she stood off to the side in case things got ugly.

"What?" Randall Hall asked, with the same straightforward confidence that he'd encountered in so many of his enemies in his life.

"Killed Mount in that wall so he wouldn't leave the label," Booth responded, trying to remain professional to provoke a confession even as a part of him wanted to beat Hall to a pulp.

In the end, the more Booth learnt about Mount, the more he sympathised with the guy; all Mount had wanted to do was create a better life for himself and the woman he loved- much like he'd tried to do for Buffy and Darla when he'd left after graduation and when he'd taken those Trials respectively-, and this guy before him had killed Mount because of it.

"You killed Eve Warren," Bones added.

"Killed her, and buried her under Rulz's studio," Booth added, casually meeting Hall's glare as the club owner leaned over to stare at him in an attempted intimidation that wouldn't have worked even if he'd just been human; after staring down the likes of Hamilton and the Beast- even if he'd been Angelus in at least half of his direct confrontations with the Beast the point still stood-, a guy who needed a cane to walk wasn't that intimidating.

"In the meantime," he continued, indicating the area around him with a brief wave of his hand, "_this _is going to have to remain an active crime scene."

"That's harassment," Hall said, walking over to stand more directly in front of Booth. "I'll sue."

"I'm going to harass you every chance I get," Booth countered, casually, only for Hall to suddenly poke Booth in the chest with the top part of his cane (The part that looked like a dog, Booth recalled).

"I'm not somebody you want to mess with," Hall said simply.

In that moment, Booth couldn't help but flash back to the first time he'd met that young Wolfram & Hart lawyer who'd become one of his most persistent enemies in Los Angeles.

"_I'm with Wolfram & Hart. Mr. Winters has never been accused and shall never be convicted of any crime–_ ever_. Should you continue to harass our client, we will be forced to bring you into the light of day... a place, I'm told, that isn't all that healthy for you_."

If Lindsey MacDonald couldn't intimidate him with a vampire that had hit at least the four-century milestone behind him, this guy _definitely _wasn't going to pull it off.

"Did you just poke me?" he asked as he stood up, looking slightly incredulously over at Bones. "Did he just poke me with his little stick?"

"This is my place," Hall said simply. "I want to _poke _somebody, I do it."

As far as Booth was concerned, that was enough. As soon as Hall moved to poke him again, Booth had grabbed the cane and twisted it out of his hands, subsequently spinning around as Oaks pulled a gun on him to grab the gun out of the undercover agent's hand before hitting him in the face with the top part of the cane. With both their opponents momentarily disabled, Booth tossed Oaks's gun to Bones and left her to aim it at the agent, leaving him to deal with Hall.

"All right," he said, casually pointing the cane at Hall, "how easily do you think I scare?"

"Hey, Booth!" Bones called over to him just as he was about to break the cane over his knee, "Don't break the cane; arrest him and confiscate the cane as evidence."

"What?" Booth asked in confusion at this sudden change of topic.

"I need the cane," Bones said, typically elaborating on her statement without actually elaborating on anything.

"Arrest him for what?" he asked, indicating Oaks as he continued. "He's the guy who pointed a gun at a federal agent."

"Uttering threats or smelling bad or anything," Bones said dismissively. "It's the cane we want."

"Fine, here," he said, handing the cane over to Bones- noting that he could just about get where she was coming from; the style of the head of Hall's cane _could _account for that 'bone dimple' she'd mentioned earlier- before he pulled out a pair of handcuffs and spun Hall around. "Randall Hall, I'm placing you under arrest for the assault of a Federal agent."

"This will never go to court," Hall stated bluntly as he turned to look at Booth.

"Ah, let's go find out," Booth countered, before he turned to look at Oaks. "Next time I take your gun away from you, I'll shoot you with it."

"Well then, I better not let you get my gun again," Oaks replied, the two men sharing a brief smile before Booth turned and walked Hall out of the club, ignoring Bones's confused stare at their exchange; he'd fill her in on Oaks's true identity later.

The guy might not be a threat on the same scale as some of the villains he'd put down as Angelus, but Booth had to admit to a certain satisfaction at seeing the frustratingly humbled expression on Hall's face as he was marched out of his own club...


	8. The Man on Death Row

Disclaimer: I own neither Angel or anything associated with him, and "Bones" is equally out of my reach control-wise

Feedback: Appreciated

Angel of the Bones

"Bones," Booth said, shaking his head slightly in frustration as he walked through the lobby towards his office, Bones's latest attempt to apply for permission to use a gun having been completed and rejected- and he still couldn't quite get over that; he wasn't used to legally _denying _people weapons-, "you don't need a gun. If anyone needs shooting, I'll do it."

He might not _want _to be regarded as essentially the guy with the gun, of course- he might have been one of the better fighters on both of his old teams, but, as Wesley had said when he'd been feeling down about Groo's presence, he'd been his second group's central focus on getting involved in the fight in the first place-, but that didn't mean he didn't recognise the necessity of his presence...

"But what if you're injured or dead and someone still needs shooting?" Bones put in, sounding almost worryingly eager before she shifted to a more conciliatory tone. "I'm not hoping it will happen; I'm just... stating a possibility."

"Ah, come on," Booth muttered as he turned to look at her from the door of his office. "You know what, Bones? You're a professor, you're not an FBI agent, OK? Use your mutant powers, just talk people to death."

As soon as he turned around and saw the red-haired, suit-clad form of Amy Morton standing in his office, Booth knew that this day was just about to get more complicated.

In principle, he supposed that he could have liked Amy Morton- she might have a determined fanaticism about the law that he hadn't seen since Lilah, and even then she channelled her energy in a far more positive manner than Lilah ever had-, but the fact that she'd dedicated that drive towards defending some clients whom Booth was always fairly certain had committed the crimes they were accused of did little to endear her to him.

"Am I interrupting?" Amy asked with that casual tone that had always frustrated him.

"I told them not to let you in this building," Booth said, staring directly at the woman. "I gave them a picture."

"Which is why I wore the tiny skirt," Amy replied briefly.

"Very cute," Booth said, walking around behind his desk, trying to ignore Amy as she introduced herself to Bones.

"You work with Booth?" Amy asked after introductions had been dealt with.

"Yes, I'm a forensic anthropologist," Bones replied simply.

"I'm a defence lawyer," Amy replied with a slight smile. "I tend to work against Booth."

"If it's all the same," Booth cut in, pointing at Amy, "I'd prefer you two didn't bond in any way."

"Hey, I want to get back to the lab," Bones said, shrugging slightly as she looked back at him. "You said I could fill out some gun reapplication forms?"

"Here you go," Booth said, handing her the form in question; if he couldn't dissuade her from applying himself, maybe the persistent bureaucracy of it would make her give up. "Send it back by courier, no hurry."

"Nice to meet you," Bones said to Amy before she walked out of the office, leaving Booth to turn and look impatiently at his remaining visitor.

"What do you want, Amy?" he asked.

"You remember Howard Epps?" Amy countered.

"Not likely to forget him," Booth replied, sitting back against his desk as he looked at Amy; it might have been a while since he'd put the man in question in prison, but the memory of the brutality of the murder that Epps had been accused of didn't dim from time.

"He's scheduled to be executed tomorrow night," Amy said simply. "My job is to keep that from happening."

"Best of luck," Booth replied dismissively.

"Howard Epps deserves five minutes of consideration from the man who put him on death row," Amy said bluntly.

"I _arrested _Howard Epps, OK?" Booth interjected; he could just about tolerate being reminded of his victims as a sniper, but he wasn't interested in people trying to guilt him about something he'd only played an indirect part in. "It was the jury who sentenced him to die."

"They found a pubic hair on the victim at the crime scene," Amy continued (Booth couldn't believe that kind of thing could actually form the basis for _any _kind of argument, but this was the world he lived in these days). "It didn't belong to my client. They never figured out whose it was."

"Blame it on the judge who disallowed it as evidence and the judge who disallowed it on appeal," Booth clarified; Gunn might have used that kind of legal argument to get some clients off during their time in charge of Wolfram & Hart, but as far as he was concerned you shouldn't escape justice just because of some legal loophole- like that time Gunn got their client off because the judge had dodgy investments- that gave you the right to get away with something you'd have been executed for under other circumstances.

"Epps was not well-represented at either trial," Amy said simply.

"How long have you been on the case?" Booth asked briefly.

"Almost a week," Amy replied, showing no sign that she was curious about the reason for this change of tactic.

"Less than a week, huh?" Booth replied, unable to stop himself from laughing slightly as he walked around from behind his desk. "Two judges, two juries, two prosecutors they find Epps guilty yet it's _me_ you come after."

"I'm asking..." Amy said, looking back at her, "are you absolutely positive Howard Epps killed that girl?"

"Yeah," Booth replied automatically. "I am absolutely positive."

"You know in your heart the judges should have allowed the juries to hear that, that victim was _with_ another man that night," Amy continued, staring intently at him. "You know it."

"Epps _still _would have been convicted," Booth said simply; the fact that the victim had slept with someone earlier just made Epps's murder of her all the more brutal, given that he may have been following her to wait for the right moment to go after her rather than simply selecting a victim at random.

"Not if I had been his lawyer," Amy replied with a brief satisfied smile.

"You weren't," Booth countered simply.

"I am now," Amy retorted, her gaze still fixed on Booth as she spoke. "When was the last time you looked him in the face? 'Cause you're a lot smarter then you were seven years ago, a lot less angry. You might want to check out the evidence again."

With that, she threw a folder down onto Booth's desk and walked out of the office, leaving Booth to pick up the folder and stare at its contents, including a photograph of Howard Epps.

That was the annoying thing about people like Amy, really; they were so certain that they were right that they made you question your own certainties about these things...

Still...

Now that she'd brought it up, with Epps's execution date coming up, he supposed that he might as well check it out...

* * *

Sitting on the other side of the glass partition as Epps sat down opposite him, a slightly haunted expression on his face that Faith had never demonstrated during all his previous visits to a prison, Booth wished that he could get his mind off the young woman he'd come to consider one of the closest things he'd had to a sister since Kathy (Even if Fred had fallen more easily into that role due to his more regular contact with her); unlike Faith, Epps hadn't _volunteered _to go to jail.

"I'd ask how you were doing, Howard," Booth said as they both picked up the 'phones' to speak to the person on the other side, "but I guess we both know the answer."

"_Agent Booth_," Epps replied from the other side. "_Did you come to apologize_?"

"I'm not the one who beat a seventeen-year-old girl to death," Booth stated simply; even as Angelus he'd never been as brutal as Epps (Although that was mainly because he had less direct methods of doing things that lasted longer rather than because he was a better person; the worst human serial killer ever produced couldn't match Angelus's patience). "Your attorney wants me to look you in the face."

"_Why_?" Epps asked simply.

"She thinks you're innocent," Booth replied, avoiding expressing his own opinion on the topic.

"_Well, she's right about that_," Epps said with a brief, urgent nod. "_I didn't kill anyone, unlike you, a sniper_."

For a moment Booth felt like punching the glass- that kind of statement always made him feel sick; he might not be _proud _of the people he'd killed as a sniper, but they'd goddamn _deserved _it, unlike his victims as Angelus-, but then Epps continued speaking and he forced his mind back on track.

"_...got murdered was smart, she was pretty, she's from a good family_," Epps was saying. "_Someone has to die for that... and I'm all they've got_."

"OK," Booth said simply- if the man was only going to start essentially accusing him of arresting him just so a bunch of rich 'snobs' had someone to blame for their daughter's death, he wasn't going to sit here and listen to him-, "I looked you in the face."

"_I've read it can be hell_!" Epps yelled as Booth began to put the phone back on its hook, prompting the former resident of that dimension to remain where he was.

"_They say it's like going to sleep, but you're on fire and you're paralyzed so you can't scream_," Epps said, his fear and apprehension at the thought of such a fate clear on his face. "_I mean... that's all you got sometimes, you know... a scream_?"

Booth knew that only too well; sometimes, when he'd been in Hell, all he'd been able to _do _to release the pain was to scream...

He still thought that Epps was the murderer.

But if there was even a _chance _that April Wright had been murdered by someone else- if there was _any _evidence that suggested someone else was involved-, he had to check it out.

* * *

Standing in the basic questioning room- at least it didn't have a desk; Booth never felt comfortable being interrogated while he was sitting down-, Booth wasn't surprised when Cullen entered the room himself; with something as big as the Epps case, it was only natural for Cullen to get involved.

"You want to start or shall I?" Cullen asked briskly as soon as the door had closed behind him.

"I'm sorry, sir-" Booth began, trying not to show his discomfort at Cullen's glare (Even after all this time, he still wasn't used to being answerable to another about his actions; back in Sunnydale he'd been more loosely affiliated with the Scoobies rather than being part of the 'command structure', and even when Wesley had been in charge of Angel Investigations he'd been allowed a certain amount of leeway after that whole mess with Harmony and the vampire pyramid scheme had been dealt with).

"I'll start," Cullen said, turning to face Booth with his hands on his hips, cutting Booth's answer off before he could finish it. "I'm thinking of, uh, suspending you for freelancing on a death penalty case we cleared seven years ago."

"My intention was just to tie up a few loose ends," Booth replied.

"Do you disapprove of the death penalty on principle, Agent Booth?" Cullen asked, folding his arms to glare at the other agent.

"No sir," Booth replied automatically (After all the demons and humans he'd killed in his lifetime, disapproving of the death penalty for any reason seemed stupid). "I have no problem with the death penalty."

"Because I hear that you are working for a particularly attractive young idealistic -" Cullen began.

"Not true, sir," Booth interrupted (His life was complicated enough without adding in a non-existent relationship with Amy to it). "I mean, yes, she's young, and she's an idealist, but I'm _not _working for her, no; like I said, there was a loose end, and I arrested Howard Epps; I provided the evidence which lead to the death sentence."

"Well, that's your job-" Cullen began.

"I need to be _sure_," Booth interjected- it might not be the best strategy to interrupt his boss, but what he'd had to say had to be said-, pausing for a moment to give Culllen a chance to respond before he continued.

"This guy was her godfather," he continued, reflecting back on Ross's reaction when presented with their latest evidence. "I believe he had sex with a seventeen year old girl the same night she was murdered- a fact that the jury never heard, by the way. He's married, he's partners in a law firm; the guys got everything to lose."

"If you want to question him, fine," Cullen said, pausing for a moment as he walked closer to the former vampire. "Is that the extent of your involvement, Agent Booth?"

"Not exactly," Booth replied (God, he _really _missed the old days; demons might be tougher, but at least you could just kill them most of the time). "They're moving to exhume the victim's body, sir."

"On whose recommendation?" Cullen asked pointedly.

"The young idealistic lawyer and Doctor Brennan," Booth replied; if he was going to commit himself to this, he might as well go all the way."

"You got the squints involved," Cullen said simply, staring silently at Booth before he reached over to pat him on the shoulder. "Well, if she shoots anybody this time, I sure the hell hope it's you."

As Cullen walked out of the room, Booth was unable to stop a brief pang of nostalgia for the days when getting shot was only a minor inconvenience to him...

* * *

Even as they began to search the part of the marsh that Hodgins had isolated in his analysis of the dirt in the wound on Amy's skull, Booth still wasn't sure how he felt about this current mess; the evidence might be looking favourably at the idea that April Wright had been killed by David Ross and the murder weapon here, but he still couldn't shake the feeling that there was something here they were missing, particularly regarding what Epps had been doing in the area in the first place...

"Over here; there's something else ere!" he called, his mind brought back on track at the sound of another agent informing the group of searching agents that the tyre iron had been discovered, studying the screen of the device before him (He wasn't entirely clear on what it did- his technical knowledge was still relatively limited-, but it was something to do with using sonar to 'scan' the ground).

"I got something," he confirmed as Bones hurried over to join him in studying the screen of the device before them. "More than a tyre iron."

After a moment's silence as Bones studied the screen, Booth decided that it was time to ask the most obvious question of the hour.

"Is that what I think it is?" he asked, hoping against hope that it wasn't; things were already frustrating enough in this case...

"I need a shov-!" Bones began to yell.

"Bones," Booth said, holding up a hand to stop her before he raised his voice. "I need a shovel; she's digging here!"

"Right away, sir!" a female agent said, another agent hurrying over with the requested instrument as the 'sonar' thing was pushed away, Booth turning down the offered shovel as Bones began to dig, only for the forensic anthropologist to pause what she was doing and turn to look pointedly at him.

"Well, are you going to help?" she asked critically

"Well, I would," Booth replied, already feeling awkward about his reasons for doing nothing, "but this is a twelve hundred dollar suit..."

"Are you _kidding _me?" Bones asked, standing up to glare at him. "I haven't slept in forty-eight hours and you're worried about your suit?"

When she phrased it like that, Booth really _did _feel like a jackass; he supposed he was just experiencing a bit of a throwback to the days when he tried to keep himself relatively presentable on a limited budget during some of his better days after his soul was restored but before he met Buffy...

"Dig gently," Bones told him as he began to impatiently shovel his way through the ground in front of him. "Small layers at a time."

The digging had only been going on for a few moments when Bones spoke again, the chosen topic of conversation being something that Booth almost couldn't believe.

"What would you usually be doing?" she asked.

"What?" Booth said, looking at her while trying to establish if his hearing had started to fail him; what did this have to do with _anything_?

"If it were a normal weekend," Bones clarified.

"You want to discuss this now?" Booth asked, trying to conceal the scale of the discomfort the question inspired; even after all this time human, a part of him still had trouble adjusting to the idea that there _was _such a thing as a 'weekend' where he could change his routine from what it was the rest of the week.

"Compared to you, with your multiple sex partners-" Bones began.

"You know, that's none of your business, OK?" Booth cut in; even if it was unintentional, the mental images evoked by her comment reminded him uncomfortably of his old attitude towards relationships as Angelus, back when he'd freely seduced multiple women- sometimes at the same time- for the sole purpose of killing them later.

"I'm not having sex with Amy," he stated, even as he continued to dig, "and I have never _ever_ cheated on any woman that I have _ever_ been with, _never_."

It was a slight lie, of course, but it wasn't like he could be blamed for what _Angelus _had done in his time; the demon's attitude towards relationships _had _been very relaxed...

"I just asked what you'd normally be doing," Bones replied briefly as she continued digging.

"I'd be at a movie, dancing, maybe with somebody that I care about," Booth replied, digging the shovel back into the ground as he continued to clear the ground below him. "You?"

The silence from Bones at that last query prompted him to look up in her direction, just as she lifted up a dirt-covered skull with a slightly stunned expression on her face as she showed it to Booth.

_What the_...? Booth muttered, his focus returning to his own digging, as the removal of the subsequent shovelfuls of earth revealed another skull, this one clearly accompanied by other bones.

"OK," Booth said, his tone low as he took in the sight before him. "What the hell is going on here...?"

He was rapidly coming to the conclusion that they'd just been played in a manner that even _Angelus _would have admired if he'd been human...

* * *

Staring at Epps as he was escorted into the interrogation room in the prison, Amy and Bones sitting in front of him while Booth stood behind them, the former vampire felt like being physically sick at the expression on Epps's face; the bastard actually looked like he was about to _cry_...

"Thank you," Epps said (The worst part was that the bastard could almost sound convincing if you hadn't seen the corpses he'd left buried in the marsh). "All I can say is... thank you."

"What's that, Howie?" Booth interjected; the last thing he wanted was this guy getting the chance to practise sounding sympathetic. "Practising to get jury sympathy?"

"I did not kill anyone," Epps said, turning to look at Bones with a slight smile. "Thank you... I mean it."

"We found the tyre iron," Booth said grimly, refusing to allow Epps the satisfaction of provoking him. "You _will _be found guilty of these murders."

"Well, I need a good lawyer," Epps replied, looking at Amy with an expression that seemed to become more self-satisfied the more he spoke. "These murder investigations take a long time, then there's the appeals since I should have been dead a half an hour ago. It's all gravy from now on."

"We gave him everything he wanted..." Amy said, the horror in her voice matching the growing disgust Booth felt for the man before him; he might have been evil as Angelus, but the idea that someone could be this twisted _with _a soul...

Booth barely even registered Epps mockingly taunting Amy about the possibility that the death penalty would be suspended by the time he went to trial for the latest murders- although the fact that Epps's words sent Amy running from the room in tears at least suggested that Epps _might _have more trouble finding a lawyer willing to take his case with this kind of evidence-, only turning his mind back to the current conversation when Epps turned his attention to Bones.

"And I owe you too," he said, nodding at her in a sickeningly eager manner that put Booth briefly in mind of Spike during his 'puppy-dog' phase (The stages of Spike's life when he would do literally _anything _if it meant making Drusilla or his current lover happy). "I read your book, and when I heard you were working with Booth here I knew you were just what I needed."

Before Booth could break Epps's nose in response to that comment- Temperance Brennan wasn't a _tool_, she was a _person_-, Bones had stood up, Epps's hand in hers- he'd grabbed her hand while he was talking- and yanked him forward across the table, slamming his face and wrist into it with such force that Booth was fairly sure he heard something crack.

"Are you going to arrest me for assault?" Bones asked as she glanced back at him.

"From what I saw?" Booth said with a brief shrug as they turned to walk away, leaving the guards to deal with the now-injured Epps. "Purely self-defence."

* * *

As he sat grimly in Wong Fu's an hour or so later, Bones off to his left as they sat at the bar, Booth wished he still had his vampiric stamina; he might not exactly be _useless _at hunting vampires in his current state if he was careful- he'd certainly proven his abilities to himself and everyone as a human during his time in Hell-, but right now he was far too tired, physically and mentally, to even _think _about going out to try to find a vampire nest to vent his frustrations on...

"What's the matter with you two?" Sid asked, walking up to them.

"Bad day at work," Booth said by way of response, sipping briefly at his drink as he spoke.

"Well, that's what you get for working on weekends," Sid said with a brief smile. "You hear about uh, taking some time off, having a little fun?"

"Why?" Bones asked, evidently grateful for the potential for an alternative topic of conversation. "What did you do?"

"I'd be breaking about six different laws if I just _told_ you how I maneuvered on my Saturday nights," Sid said, sipping at his own drink before he looked back at them. "But I will bring you some food.

"I'm not hungry," Bones began.

"No use arguing with Sid, Bones," Booth said, briefly bumping knuckles with the restaurant owner as he walked off.

"Are you in trouble with your boss?" Bones asked.

"Oh, you know…" Booth said, trying to sound nonchalant before he finally voiced the main issue that was currently bothering him. "I'm sorry for wrecking your weekend for nothing."

"No," Bones replied simply. "Not for nothing."

"Ah, you know what I mean…" Booth muttered, looking down at the bar in frustration and shame. "You know, all that running around… it didn't change anything. Epps was guilty; he was always guilty."

"There was doubt," Bones responded. "We had an obligation to respect that doubt. We all share in the death of every human being."

"Very poetic…" Booth reflected as he took another sip of his drink.

"No, very literal," Bones clarified. "We all share DNA. When I look at a bone it's not some artifact that I can separate from myself; it's a part of a person who got here the same way I did. It should never be easy to take someone's life; I don't care who it is."

For a moment, Booth could only stare at her after that statement, unable to believe that the scientific, rational Temperance Brennan could have made a statement that… _passionate_… about the value of human life.

Even after some of the reports he'd heard about her sorting through mass graves, the victims were still _people _to her; they weren't _statistics_…

He'd once thought of Bones as the personification of the new life he had lived since he stopped calling himself Angel- a world of science and rationality, where men and women did bad things because they were men and women and he could use his skills as a human to put them away-, but looking at her now, with that speech still ringing in his ears…

She truly _was _the perfect antithesis to Angelus.

"What?" Bones asked, looking at him in confusion as he continued to stare. "What?"

"You know," Booth said, smiling at her as he held his fingers up just a short distance apart, "you've been practicing your Nobel prize speech just a little too much."

"Here you go," a waitress said, breaking off the brief bonding moment as she and Sid set the dishes down in front of them.

"Scallops and sachewan garlic sauce, duck fried rice, apple pie, hot cup of joe," Sid said by way of explanation as he picked up a glass. "To simple pleasures, my friends."

_You're right about that_, Booth thought, as he and Bones began to dish into their food.

They might have spent the weekend giving a guy who _really _deserved to die an extra lease on life, but right now, as he sat eating Chinese food with a forensic anthropologist who knew next to nothing about _either _of his pasts- human or vampire-, Booth wasn't sure he'd ever been more content with himself than he was now.


	9. The Girl in the Fridge

Disclaimer: I own neither Angel or anything associated with him, and "Bones" is equally out of my reach control-wise

Feedback: Appreciated

AN: Given how quickly I jump into the main plot of this episode, I feel obligated to clarify that this chapter starts when Booth and Brennan are interviewing two suspects in the death of Maggie Schilling, a drug addict whose body was found in a fridge that Booth brought into the Jeffersonian shortly after Brennan's old forensics professor arrived at the Jeffersonian, currently questioning the ex-office manager

Angel of the Bones

"I didn't give Maggie Schilling those samples, she boosted them herself," Mary Costello said as she and her husband walked around their living room to sit down as the conversation continued, her tone a frustratingly casual manner that put Booth in mind of Darla after they'd left a massacre in a house on a busy street; she _knew _that she'd just murdered innocent people, but she was so casually confident that she'd get away with it that what they'd done didn't even seem to register to anyone around them. "Barragan just blamed me so he would have an excuse to fire me."

"Why'd he fire you?" Booth asked; he had some suspicions about how the other woman would respond, but he wanted to confirm it before he allowed himself to speculate further.

"Because he's a horn dog," Mary replied dismissively, smiling briefly at her husband- her stance and expression putting Booth briefly in mind of Faith back in her first year in Sunnydale- before she sat down. "I tried to keep things... professional... you know what I mean?"

"Doctor Barragan said that you were closer to Maggie Schilling than any other patient," Bones put in at that point (And _God_, Booth wished he could stop the brief flash he got of Bones renewing her 'close' relationship with her professor; he had no _reason _to be thinking like that).

"Did you meet her parents?" Mary asked.

"Yes," Bones replied uncertainly.

"Then you know the poor girl was pretty much on her own," Mary replied, Booth leaving Brennan to handle the questions while he took the opportunity to examine the surrounding apartment in greater detail. "We took her in."

"He said that you went out together, that you took her to clubs," Bones continued.

"We just... felt sorry for her, you know?" Mary's husband Scott added as Booth ran his finger along the kitchen counter, briefly wondering at Scott's distinctive accent before he continued his search. "She was lonely, so we showed her a good time, right?"

As his gaze fell on the refrigerator in the kitchen- a shining silver model where everything else around him seemed to be about as old as the stuff he'd kept in the small kitchen he'd kept in his apartment back in Sunnydale in the event that Buffy came over and wanted breakfast (Just because he hadn't pushed her didn't mean he hadn't _thought _about it)-, Booth tuned out the Costello's words as he studied the object in front of him, his attention

Taking a quick glance to ensure that they weren't looking at him, he leaned one shoulder against the refrigerator and pushed slightly against it, a grim smile spreading across his face as he took in what his actions had exposed; a rust-brown circular indenture on the floor, in what looked like the exact same shape as the legs of the fridge they'd found Maggie in.

_Jackpot_, he reflected grimly as he took in what he'd just uncovered.

He had to admit, this case was _definitely _going in his record books; this had to be the shortest amount of time it had _ever _taken them to identify the killers (The evidence might be argued to be circumstantial, but in his book you didn't throw out a fridge that turned up with a dead body in it unless you _knew _what was in there).

"... Maggie to go to meetings," Scott was saying as Book turned around to walk back into the living room area of the apartment. "You know, AA..."

"That's very kind of you," Booth said, keeping his tone level as he looked between them. "Let's talk about your new refrigerator."

"Why?" Mary asked, looking at him with a slight chuckle of confusion.

"Mainly," Booth replied as he stared back at her, "I would like to know what happened to your old one, huh?"

It was the subsequent arrogant smirk she shot at him that reminded him of Darla more than anything right then; his sire had possessed that exact same expression whenever someone had attempted to confront them about what they'd just done when Darla was secure in her knowledge that they couldn't do anything to prove it.

Whether it was because of what they'd done to Maggie, the fact that she and her husband had kept it quiet for a year without ever reporting it, or simply the fact that she reminded him of the Faith he'd once thought existed before that final fight in an alleyway, Booth was definitely going to take _serious _pleasure in wiping that smirk from her face...

* * *

"Well," Booth said, walking over to Brennan an hour later as FBI crime scene techs swarmed through the Costello's apartment, having just finished a brief conversation with one of the techs, "the fridge we found Maggie in is a match with the marks on the Costello's floor."

"They're sadomasochist fetishists," Bones said, her tone suggesting a slight incredulity.

"Yeah," Booth said, picking up a box and moving it to the nearby table for them to better examine its contents. "They turned the basement into a fun room."

"Seeking sexual gratification through the manipulation of power," Bones reflected, as she picked up some kind of spiked collar and held it on the end of her finger. "Probably the oldest of fetishes; master-slave... it's all about dominance."

"Well," Booth muttered reflectively, "this sort of thing only comes up when the bloom goes off the rose, if you know what I mean."

"I don't know what you mean," Bones replied, the same confused expression on her face that Booth had come to find highly amusing over the last few months.

"You know," Booth said, keeping his voice low as he shrugged. "When the regular stuff... when it gets old, you need to spice it up or it's over. The sex is _good_, you don't need any help."

"Well, that's for sure," Bones said, smiling slightly at his comment.

"I'm sorry?" Booth said, looking at his partner in surprise; he couldn't even _remember _the last time he'd heard Bones say something like that to him without it being preceded by an elaborate debate of some kind...

"I was agreeing," Bones replied.

"Yeah, well... don't, OK?" Booth asked, trying to stop his mind asking the question of who Bones had been thinking off to prompt that last smile. "It kind of freaks me out."

"I was just saying that I, myself, feel no inclination towards either pain or dominance when it comes to sex," Bones replied

"Are you sure?" Booth replied, seizing on the opportunity to lighten the mood (He'd always enjoyed this freedom when it came to Booth's personality; without needing to worry about the restrictions on his soul, he could be a lot more relaxed than he'd been in the old days).

"Yeah, I'm sure," Bones replied.

"Because you can be very bossy," Booth responded, ignoring the slight tap of a crop on his shoulder as he turned to pick a pair of fuzzy pink handcuffs- why did people _make _these stupid things?- with a pen before turning to look at the Costellos as they were escorted out of the apartment.

"Look at him, huh?" he said, waving the handcuffs mocking at Scott Costello (He wished the guy would react; these two were being _far _too calm when there was this kind of evidence that they'd been involved in a murder. "Look at him, all smiley; I bet he just _loves _these things..."

Further mocking was cut off as Bones reached over to remove the handcuffs from the pen to look at them more closely.

"These could explain the stress fractures," she said, as she opened one of the cuffs. "Her bones were brittle from the disease; struggling would... cause the cracks we saw."

If he'd still been Angel, Booth was certain he would have punched the nearest Costello for doing something like that to an essentially teenage girl; as it was, he couldn't do anything like that without having them scream 'police brutality' at him, so he'd just have to leave it and trust the system to put them away.

BDSM...

God, he'd just _never _managed to get the appeal after he'd regained his soul; Angelus might have enjoyed the thrill of dominating another being, but after spending so long with his body under the control of his demon, Angel had _never _felt comfortable even _thinking _about doing it again even in his fantasies about Buffy prior to him losing his soul, and the memories he'd been given of Booth's upbringing didn't exactly inspire much interest in that scene either.

Add in what Bones's analysis of the fractures on Maggie's wrists had turned up, and he _really _didn't like these people; Maggie might have been a drug addict, but nobody deserved to die like that even before you took that brittle bone thing she was suffering from into account...

He was _definitely_ going to feel a certain satisfaction when this case went to trial.

* * *

Booth hated to admit it even to himself, but he'd have been lying if he didn't admit that he'd enjoyed the idea of Bones having to go up against her old forensics professor when they learned that he'd been appointed expert witness for the prosecution; the fact that the guy seemed to think that he could just walk into Bones's life like he'd never left and have them pick up an apparently sexual relationship _exactly _where they left off had _really _gotten on his nerves...

It was unfortunate that the feeling of satisfaction only lasted until the moment when Bones had to take the stand and explained her findings to the jury- that was the annoying bit about this case compared to their others; this was the first time that they'd actually _depended _on the analysis to make their points when it could legitimately be challenged, given the lack of fixed forensic identification such as teeth marks or that bruised bone-, and he'd known they were in trouble.

Bones might like to consider herself a fair speaker when dealing with her students, and could make a half-decent argument for her choice of words by claiming that she was trying not to treat the jury like idiots, but she'd been using so many long words that he'd felt like he was dealing with Willow or Fred when they were on a roll with their current theory and didn't really register who was listening all over again.

As much as he hated to admit it, Bones's problem right now was that she went over the jurors' heads; it looked like she was trying to blind them with science to make them agree with her out of uncertainty about her facts.

This 'Stires' guy, on the other hand...

"In my opinion," Stires said as he sat in the stand, looking out at the trial's audience with a casual manner that reminded Booth of Lindsey, "the high levels of hydromorphone are more consistent with recreational use than for pain relief."

"Could you explain?" the defence lawyer asked.

"Well," Stires replied, smiling in a manner that Booth didn't like, "I might not use all the technical language but I'll try to make myself understood."

"Objection, your honour," the prosecution lawyer- Levitt, Booth thought his name was; he hadn't had the chance to talk to the guy on his own yet- said, standing up as the jury smiled at Stires's comment. "The witness is impugning another witness."

"Sustained," the judge said, before indicating Stires with her pen. "Continue."

"I'm sorry; I, uh, I don't do this professionally," Stires said, the apparently genuine apology in his voice at that last comment just increasing Booth's distaste for him as he turned back to address the jury. "People who need to relieve physical pain will stop after the pain disappears. It doesn't take more then an average dose to accomplish that. Drug users are trying to bury _emotional_ pain which means they'll medicate until they feel nothing. This is why they have a tendency to overdose, like Maggie Schilling.

"That's not accurate," Bones whispered to Levitt, leaning forward to address the lawyer. "Sometimes chronic pain does not respond to medication."

"I'll bring it up on cross-examination," Levitt said, Booth reaching over to take hold of Brennan's shoulder and pull her back into her seat.

"What about Dr. Brennan's claim that her pain was somehow connected to the victim being bound for a length of time?" the defence lawyer added.

"Well," Stires continued, "the Costellos have already stipulated to the fact that they bound Miss. Schilling as a part of their rather unorthodox sexual act, and Dr. Brennan agrees that Miss. Schilling had hyperpara…"

He paused briefly before continuing. "Well, if I could simplify, a thyroid condition that can weaken her bones. No need to look for… _bondage_ scenarios.

"That is ridiculous," Brennan whispered to Booth. "He's ignoring all the facts…"

Booth briefly thought about responding in confirmation- he himself had pointed out that binding the legs was hardly indicative of an interest in a sexual act, and the fact that the Costellos had just dumped the body after things had gone wrong did _very _little to endear them to him- but then Stires continued and Booth had a new issue to focus on.

"With respect to my former student, Doctor Brennan," Stires added, "with findings like these I don't know why she became a Forensic Anthropologist; she seems to have ignored all but her pre-conceived notions about the case."

"Objection," Levitt said, voicing Booth's own impulsive desire to speak before he gave into temptation and found himself in contempt of court; as it was, with Levitt the one voicing it they could at least give the impression of remaining professional in this case (Although Booth still would have preferred Stires to actually meet with some _consequences _for his last comment).

"Do you disagree with Dr. Brennan's data?" the defence lawyer asked.

"Well, sometimes doctors can use data to confuse a very simple situation," Stires replied with a shrug. "I mean, I'm a doctor and I could hardly follow her."

Booth was ready to hit the guy even then; what he said afterwards- while _smiling _at the goddamn _jury_- just made him want to do more than just punch him.

"This case is about people, not incomprehensible technical jargon," Stires continued (Booth couldn't believe the guy could use that argument; did he even _care _that the 'people' he was defending had _killed_ somebody?) "I don't think that these people should be convicted of murder just because Dr. Brennan sounds smart."

Booth didn't even register Levitt's objection; looking at Stires in that moment, all he could hear were sentences that he'd only ever heard in his memories, even if they'd been spoken with his voice and come from his own lips.

"_You got a lot to learn about men, kiddo. Although I guess you proved that last night_."

"_Which do you think is worse, Wes? Stealing my kid like you did, or banging him, like Cordelia_?"

"_Darla felt the same way. It made her sick, you squirming inside her. So, she jammed a stake in her own heart, just so she wouldn't have to hear your first whiny breath_."

Stires was using his personal knowledge of Bones's personal defects to undermine and belittle her in court, simply to defend people whom he _knew _were guilty from the evidence she'd provided, for nothing more than a fee…

It was almost worse than the times Angelus had belittled and hurt his friends and family back when he'd been released; at least then he'd had the excuse that Angelus wasn't really _him_…

"…court with adjourn until 9 a.m. tomorrow," the judge said, drawing Booth's attention back to the present as the jury were led out of the room.

"Listen," he said, leaning over to whisper to Bones before they stood up, "don't worry about a thing, OK?"

He knew that Bones wasn't as cold as Stires was essentially trying to make the jury believe she was; the trick was to figure out the right way to make her _reveal _that side of herself to the jury…

* * *

"He wasn't acting as an objective expert; he was making up a story!" Bones protested once they were out in the hallway with Levitt and Deaver.

"The judge chastised him in front of the jury," Levitt put in. "That will work for us…"

"The _hell_ it will," Deaver said in frustration, her arms folded as she glared at them. "The jury _loves_ Stires. He looks like a regular guy who's not allowed to speak the truth because the stupid rules get in the way."

"The rules of jurist prudence aren't stupid," Bones retorted incredulously (Booth made a mental note to talk with her about when it was a good idea _not _to talk; showing support for the rules that were screwing them over at this point wasn't going to help).

"Doctor Brennan," Deaver continued, her glare now focused on Bones, "you need to learn the difference between reality and perception. A trial is all about perception."

"Wow, you're the reason civilization is declining," Bones countered (A part of Booth couldn't help but be impressed; even her _insults _were more developed than normal people's).

"Talk to her," Deaver practically begged him.

"I kind of agree with her," Booth replied briefly.

Staring at them both in frustration for a moment, Deaver turned around and walked away down the corridor, evidently annoyed at their lack of progress in the case.

"Thanks," Bones whispered to him.

"You know, I really don't agree with you," Booth said (It wasn't technically accurate, but explaining that he agreed with her views while disagreeing with her approach wouldn't help Bones change her approach in the time they needed), shaking his head slightly. "I just… I don't like her."

To Bones's credit, she didn't allow the last comment to affect her, simply staring at him for a moment before she turned around to address Levitt once again.

"Put me back on the stand," she said, her arms folded resolutely. "I can rebut everything that Michael said.

"She can do this," Booth put in, hoping this show of support would be enough to make up for his last comment.

"I'll think about it," Levitt said, his tone of voice giving the impression that he was more inclined to do the opposite, before he turned around and walked off down the corridor after Deaver.

"I've never been in this position before, Booth," Bones said, looking at him with an intense urgency. "I _need _to get back up there."

"Alright," Booth said, nodding briefly at her. "Just… let me talk to him."

He just hoped that what he had in mind would work; if this line of questioning didn't pay off, he'd be in trouble on a professional _and _personal level for wasting the court's time…

* * *

As he sat in the courtroom, staring at Bones as she sat in the witness stand, once again recounting the facts in an excessive amount of scientific detail despite Levitt's best efforts to subtly encourage down to a more 'pedestrian' terminology, Booth wasn't sure what he was more nervous about; the possibility that his idea to get jury sympathy back on their side and away from Professor 'Stirgelus' wouldn't work, or how Bones would react to it if it did.

Using the weaknesses of others to get the reaction he wanted…

He'd never been comfortable doing this kind of thing as _Angel_- even when he'd been planning to infiltrate the Circle of the Black Thorn he'd only been lying about _himself _rather than trying to hurt others (Using Fred's memory to get what he was after didn't count; the rest of the team hadn't known he was using her like that and they'd learned his real reasons shortly afterwards anyway)-; he had to wonder if the fact that he was willing to do it as Booth was something that he should be worried about…

"Doctor Brennan, why'd you become a Forensic Anthropologist?" Levitt asked

"I beg your pardon?" Bones asked in confusion.

"There must be some reason you chose this field out of the hundred of other careers someone of your intelligence could have chosen," Levitt elaborated. "Was there some… emotional reason, perhaps?"

"Objection," the defence lawyer said. "Relevance, you honor?"

"I don't see how this pertains to the case-" Bones began, evidently uncomfortable at the new topic.

"Doctor Brennan is cold, distant, and alienating, your honour," Levitt said by way of explanation even as he continued to look at Bones.

"Hey!" Bones yelled.

"I need the jury to understand why she's so cold," Levitt continued, turning to address the judge, "so that they might be willing to accept her testimony."

"Her personality issues are not relevant to this case-" the defence lawyer interjected.

"They opened up this line of questioning, your honor," Levitt continued (Booth was glad to know that he was accurate in that detail; legal issues like that had never been his strong point, but he'd evidently picked up more from Gunn than he'd thought at the time), indicating the defence team. "When Doctor Stires was on the stand, he wondered why Doctor Brennan became a forensic anthropologist, so the defense must have thought it had some relevance then."

"Sorry, Mr. Meredith," the judge said, looking at him with a slight smile in her eyes, "you _did_ raise the issue. Overruled; you may continue, Mr. Levitt."

"Doctor Brennan," Levitt said, his attention once again focused on Bones, "your parents disappeared when you were fifteen and no one's ever found out whatever happened to them. Is that correct?

Booth momentarily wished that he'd never brought this line of inquiry up when Bones glared at him, but forced himself to simply sit there and not register it; any sign of discomfort at this point could jeopardize their already-fragile defence…

"Please answer the question, Doctor Brennan," the judge gently prompted.

"That's correct," Bones said after a momentary further pause.

"It must be very painful," Levitt continued. "Is it fair to say that you've been trying to solve the mystery of their loss your whole life?"

"Do I want answers?" Bones replied. "Yes. As to how that is affecting my behavior- which I assume is what you are trolling for-, I don't put much stock in Psychology."

"Is that why you wrap yourself up in techno-speak?" Levitt continued, walking away from the stand to address his question to the jury. "So you don't have to feel how these victims remind you of your parents?"

"How I feel doesn't matter," Bones countered. "My job doesn't depend on it-"

"But it's informed by it," Levitt neatly retaliated. "Are you as cold and unfeeling as you seem?"

For a moment silence dominated the courtroom as Levitt stared at Bones, the beautiful anthropologist unable to do more than look back at him as her own inner conflict waged inside her, until she finally spoke.

"I see a face on every skull," she said, a slight tremor of her lip the only sign of just how distressed she was by what had just been brought out in public. "I can look at their bones and tell you how they walked, where they hurt. Maggie Schilling is real to me."

Booth briefly noted that Bones had turned her head slightly so that she was now addressing Stires, but put that factor aside to focus more on his partner's words themselves (Just so long as Stires understood what an _asshole _he'd been, how the guy was reacting to this didn't matter to Booth as much as seeing how Bones was coping with it).

"The pain she suffered was real," Bones continued, her statement drawing increased attention from the jury as she spoke. "Her hip was being eaten away by infection from lying on her side. Sure, like Doctor Stires said, the _disease_ could contribute to that if you take it out of context, but you can't break Maggie Schilling down into little pieces. She was a whole person who fought to free herself. Her wrists were broken from struggling against the handcuffs. The bones in her ankles were ground together because her feet were tied, and her side, her hip, and her shoulder were being eaten away by infection, and the more she struggled, the more pain she was in so they gave her those drugs to keep her quiet. They gave her so much it killed her."

As Bones turned to address the jury directly, Booth was almost tempted to give her a brief smile of approval if it wasn't for the risk of it being taken the wrong way; the last thing he wanted was for her to think he was amused at the idea of her in emotional pain like this.

"These facts can't be ignored or dismissed because you think I'm… boring or obnoxious because I don't matter," Bones said, the emotion on her face at the current topic obvious to everyone. "What I feel doesn't matter. Only she matters… only Maggie."

_Jackpot_, Booth thought to himself.

After a plea like that, based on emotion rather than casual jokes, you'd need to be made of stone to want to let the Costellos off.

The only problem was how he'd patch things up with Bones after what he'd just done…

* * *

As far as scenes for apologies went, Booth wondered what it said about his relationship with Bones where he was attempting to apologise to her while standing on scaffolding around the half-way point of the Washington monument; why was it that he could never choose- or manage- a good location for the _really _difficult conversations with the women in his life?

Still, the fact that she was here in the first place at least leant weight to the hope that she'd be willing to listen to his apology; Stires had clearly burnt every last one of his bridges with her, given that the last news he'd heard about the guy had Stires heading back to his old university after recent events had affected his reputation when applying for the position here…

"The victim is an adult male, thirty-five to forty years old," Bones said as she studied the burned body tied to the scaffolding before them. "From the pattern of the burning, I would say an accelerant was used; could you hand me my bag?

"Yeah, sure," Booth said, picking up the bag in question and handing it over to her. "Hey, listen; you want my coat or something? It's cold up here."

"If I did, I'd ask for it," Bones retorted, neatly cutting off that potential line of apology.

"Yeah, sorry…" Booth said

Then again, it was probably for the best; Bones wasn't really someone who appreciated- or sometimes even understood- subtlety…

"And… um… I'm sorry," he said again, hoping that she understood where the second 'sorry' was coming from.

It was an inadequate means of apologizing for the way he'd used her past without her permission in the manner that he had, but he didn't have anything else that he could say to make his point; putting away the Costellos didn't change how he'd hurt her…

After a moment's silence as Bones contemplated what she'd just heard, she

"You had something to accomplish, and you found a logical way of getting what you needed," she said, shrugging briefly at him before she allowed him a brief nod. "I probably would have done the same thing."

Booth couldn't help but smile slightly at that.

The fact that she understood why he'd done it didn't make up for hurting her like that, but at least she was willing to move on from the incident…


	10. The Man in the Fallout Shelter

Disclaimer: I own neither Angel or anything associated with him, and "Bones" is equally out of my reach control-wise

Feedback: Appreciated

Angel of the Bones

"What have you got there?" Booth asked as he walked into the Jeffersonian, Bones still standing over the body he'd brought in from the fallout shelter earlier, going through the pockets of the coat that the body had been wearing.

"Two open tickets to Paris, one way, Pan Transit airlines," Bones replied, squinting slightly as she studied the tickets held up in front of her, most likely having trouble with the faded ink. "They're blank."

"Pan Transit went out of business in the sixties," Booth noted (One advantage of being a vampire was the history he'd experienced; even when he'd been in his 'alley phase' after that doughnut shop incident, he'd spent a fair amount of time reading newspapers out of a lack of anything else to do).

"I thought that you were at the party?" Bones added, looking briefly up at him.

"Oh, that wasn't a party," Booth said, shaking his head at the memory (He hadn't been surrounded by that many geeks since the last time he was in the Wolfram & Hart science department, and that had been _long _before his final assault on the Circle given that he'd cut most of his ties to the department after Fred's 'death'). "That was a Star Wars convention."

Apparently not paying attention to his comment, Bones reached out with her tweezers to pick up a flattened bullet, holding it out for Booth to look at himself.

"This was still in the skull," she said, prompting a whistle from Booth at the sight.

".22 calibre," he said reflectively (He might have spent comparatively little time _using_ guns in his centuries of life, but he'd been shot often enough that he had a good idea of what bullets went with what gun). "Matches the gun he was holding. Did you open up the suitcase?"

"Nope," Bones replied as she put the bullet back down.

"Why not?" Booth asked.

"It could hold information that would compromise my objectivity," Bones responded

"Oh yeah, like a name and address?" Booth countered; he'd never thought that he'd deal with someone during a crisis who actually seemed to _want _to make their job harder...

"I prefer to make unbiased initial observations," Bones responded, putting the tickets down before she looked up at something apparently taking place on the balcony behind him. "Is that pure alcohol?"

"Yes, Doctor Brennan," Zach's voice replied, prompting Booth to turn around and see Zach and Hodgins on the walkway above them, Hodgins carrying a beaker in front of him with his arms outstretched and an eager smile on his face that swiftly faded into exasperation as he looked at Zach.

"You really think Goodman is going to let you spike the eggnog after the Fourth of July fiasco?" Bones replied (Booth made a mental note to ask what the 'Fourth of July fiasco' consisted of when they'd dealt with this case).

"Uh, we may have to rethink..." Hodgins muttered as he looked back at the intern.

"Zach, I need you to clean these bones," Bones continued.

"Now?" the young intern asked, clearly shocked at the order.

"Burn..." Hodgins said, laughing slightly.

"And I need you to search the clothing for insect evidence," Bones continued, her attention shifting to Hodgins just as he had turned to walk away.

"Geez, Bones, Merry Christmas..." Booth muttered

"OK, you people, listen to me," Angela said, her voice cutting off further debate; Booth wasn't sure whether to be more surprised at her outfit when he saw her standing at the top of the stairs leading up to the main ramp- a long dark green hat with a red bobble on the end, a long-sleeved top in a lighter green, a short dark green skirt, a dark green waistcoat with smaller red bobbles, and curved pointy shoes- or the fact that she somehow managed to sound authoritative despite the outfit.

"There is a party going on upstairs, OK?" Angela continued, ignoring any apparent thought that her dress might have inspired questions. "A _Christmas_ party. We're going up there. We're going to talk to some people, we're going to sing some carols, we're going to drink some eggnog. You," she added, pointing at Booth with an equally pointed stare, "are going to kiss me under the mistletoe on the lips."

She turned to address Zach and Hodgins with a slightly resigned manner. "I might kiss you guys under the mistletoe too."

She then turned to Bones. "Maybe even you in a festive non-lesbian manner, but we are going to that party."

Looking over at Bones after that last statement out of a lack of anything else to do- Angela certainly had a way of making an interesting impression on you when she wanted to-, Booth couldn't help but smile slightly at the sight of her looking in slight confusion at her best friend before he turned back to Angela.

"OK, maybe we could... compromise a bit?" he asked, trying to find an argument that would placate Angela without Bones getting too snappy at him. "Maybe if we just give Bones a _few _more minutes to check the body, see if something comes up...?"

"Thank you," Bones said, nodding at him before she looked back up at Zach and Hodgins. "You heard Booth; see if you can find anything for just a few more minutes and then we'll see what comes next."

Exchanging resigned glances, Zach and Hodgins headed off once again, leaving Bones to get back to work as she began to remove the body's clothing.

"Hey, what-?" Booth began.

"We need to move the body to the lab so that Zach can take some samples," Bones said by way of explanation. "If he can't find anything else noteworthy about the remains, we'll go to the party; I've already determined cause of death to my satisfaction."

"_Fine_..." Angela muttered, as she headed over to a nearby table where someone had left a jar of eggnog earlier. "I'll wait here; just _don't _try and delay this again or you're _really _going to spoil Christmas..."

Sighing slightly as he glanced at his watch and wandered down to the lower levels so that he could dstay out of the way, Booth ignored Zach and Hodgins arriving to take the body to the lab, even as he wondered what Angela would think about spoiled Christmases if she knew about some of the ones he'd had; even putting aside his Christmases as Angelus- when he'd _wanted _to spoil the holiday; he'd never exactly made a big deal out of it as Liam when he'd been alive the first time-, he'd definitely had a few depressing ones as Angel, ranging from that whole mess when he'd been hunted by the First Evil to that rather complicated mess at Wolfram & Hart; to say that the majority of his employees then hadn't even _cared _about the holiday was barely even beginning to describe the worst of his problems...

The sudden blaring of alarms as lights began to flash on the thin 'support struts' around the main lab area broke Booth's train of thought.

"What's that?" he asked, spinning around to look urgently at the squints on the table.

"Biological contamination," Goodman replied (Booth hadn't even seen the guy come in; he must have walked onto the platform while he was lost in thought).

Booth didn't need to hear Hodgins suddenly yell Zach's name to know that the situation was bad, but when the doors to the outside world suddenly closed behind him, he knew that the situation had just become worse.

"The doors seal automatically," Angela said, her tone far too calm for Booth's liking in a situation where contamination was involved. "Don't worry about it."

"What do you mean don't worry about it?" he asked, turning to look at her in frustration; he'd actually had _plans _for the next couple of days, and now he was stuck in the lab with the squints?

"There's no use panicking until we know what it is-" Bones began."

"What _what_ is?" Booth interjected, walking impatiently over to the squints.

"Uh... we might know," Hodgins said, prompting Booth to turn around to be greeted by the somewhat-unusual sight of Zach and Hodgins standing in the lab, dripping wet and dressed only in towels.

"I cut into the fallout shelter bones and the biohazard alarm went off," Zach said, his usual laconic expression seemingly untroubled despite the fact that they were in a now-sealed building.

"Were you conforming to autopsy protocol?" Goodman asked, his usual authority still present despite the current situation.

"One of us was," Zach replied in a low, accusing voice.

"The other was... drinking an eggnog," Hodgins admitted, raising his left hand sheepishly for a moment.

"And you didn't have your mask on?" Goodman asked, groaning in frustration at Hodgin's nod.

* * *

"What are those little tiny lights dancing on the ceiling?" Booth asked, pointing upwards at the ceiling of Goodman's office as he and the Jeffersonian administrator tried to get some sleep; the former archaeologist had claimed the couch before Booth could do anything about it, leaving him with no other option but to accept the floor and try to cope with the bizarre side-effects of the antidote that had been provided for them.

God... every time he thought he'd gotten past his issues with his new humanity, something new came up; if it wasn't his lack of his old strength, it was his new vulnerability to human diseases and the subsequent need to receive treatment for them...

"For the third time," Goodman muttered in sleepy frustration, "those are minute firings of neurons on your optic nerve due to your reaction to the anti-fungal cocktail."

"Wow..." Booth said, still staring up at the objects in front of him (Even the part of his mind that consciously registered what he was seeing _couldn't _be real didn't stop him appreciating the view. "Whoa... they're beautiful..."

"You are stoned, Agent Booth," Goodman said, laughing slightly as he spoke.

"Oh, good," Booth said, letting out his own laugh as he rested his left hand against his forehead. "Let's hope it lasts long enough to keep this from being the worst Christmas of my life."

He acknowledged that he'd probably had worse Christmases in his time, but those had all been as Angel; as far as his memories as _Booth _were concerned, being stuck in a massive lab with a bunch of people he was only starting to consider friends at best was _not _how he'd been planning on spending Christmas...

"What are you complaining about?" Goodman asked, as he reached into the sleeping bag, pulling out a wallet and passing Booth a picture from it as he continued to speak. "I don't like to boast but I am the spirit of Christmas in my house. I have a wife and twin five year old daughters. We have family traditions, the most important of which is being together for Christmas."

"Wow, they're beautiful," Booth said, bringing his mind into clear enough focus for him to make out the picture in his hand, showing Goodman and a woman in a blue top sitting on either side of two little girls, each wearing the same orange dress and smiling goofily at the camera...

"Yeah, I have a kid too," he added, taking his own wallet out and pulling out the picture of Parker he always kept on him- he kept his few surviving pictures of Connor in a secure place in his apartment; while it wasn't _entirely _outside the realm of probability for him to have had a child of Connor's age if he had been human, it would have attracted too many questions about his past that he didn't want to have to deal with- and passing it to Goodman. "His name is Parker; he's four years old. His mother wouldn't marry me, so my parental rights are totally..."

"Vague?" Goodman concluded for Angel as he studied the picture.

"That word's just a little more Christmasier than what I was thinking," Booth replied

In the end he supposed it had been for the best- he'd never been comfortable telling Rebecca much about his life as Booth; he couldn't even imagine how she would have reacted if he'd told her about his time as _Angel_-, but that didn't stop him from wishing that he could have more of a role in Parker's life than he did.

Why was it, whether he was Angel or Booth, he _still _couldn't manage to be a good father? His mistakes with Connor might have been more significant- Holtz kidnapping him and raising him in Quor-toth, 'Jasmine' seducing him-, but just because his problems with Parker were more prosaic didn't mean they were less significant...

"He's a fine-looking boy," Goodman said, bringing Booth's thoughts back to the present as he handed the picture of Parker back.

"Yeah, I get him part of Christmas Day," Booth replied, holding the picture up in front of him once more. "I get him an excellent present every year- something really cool-, but this, uh, this year..."

"Yes, this year," Goodman replied, his tone grim.

"What are those little lights on the ceiling?" Booth asked, smiling slightly in an attempt to draw their thoughts away from this particular bleak topic (Even as he noted that he _was _having some trouble recalling Goodman's previous explanation for the presence of the lights...).

* * *

Even if he freely acknowledged that the drugs that were currently in his system were probably responsible for his currently eccentric mood, Booth couldn't help himself when he saw Bones sitting at the platform with a microscope in front of her; sneaking up onto the lab area from the side, he jumped up from behind the 'pod' containing the body, his hands held high in the air and Angela's hat on his head, only for her to show no reaction to his presence even after he jumped for a second time.

"Bones," he said, looking at her with an urgent smile, "it's after midnight. Hmm? Christmas Eve Day? Both an Eve and a day; it's a Christmas miracle!"

"Still enjoying your medication, I see," Bones replied in a low voice, not even looking up from her work as he walked around the pod and pulled a chair over from another desk so that he could sit down beside her.

"OK, so what are we looking at?" he asked curiously.

"There are traces of lead and nickel in the dead guy's osteological profile," Bones began, Booth pulling off his hat mid-sentence and leaning over to place his head in his hands.

"You don't seem that upset about missing Christmas," he cut in, deciding to tackle one question he felt he needed an answer to more than any other right now.

He might not have spent much his overall life celebrating the holiday himself, but he'd always understood its importance even as a vampire- even if Angelus preferred to use it as an opportunity for torture; he still recalled one particularly gruesome time Angelus butchered a family and set them up in a mockery of the nativity scene-, and Bones _really _didn't seem that cut up about it...

"Indications are that Christ- if he existed- was born in late spring, and the celebration of his birth was shifted to coincide with the pagan rite of the winter solace so that early Christians weren't persecuted," Bones began, speaking with a rapid pace that reminded Booth briefly of Fred or Cordelia when they were getting particularly passionate about a topic, before she turned back to her work as though she'd never been interrupted.

"Who are you, like, the Christmas Killer?" Booth asked (He couldn't quite believe he'd just phrased it like that; he'd spent _way _too much time with Cordelia and Buffy).

"It's the truth-" Bones began briefly.

"No, it _sounds_ like the truth because it's so rational, right?" Booth said, staring at her in slight dejection; he went to all that effort to get his redemption, and the woman he was working with to ensure it couldn't even get the point of why people sometimes _needed _to believe there was more out there than what they could see. "But the... you know, the _true _truth is... you hate Christmas so you just... spout out all these facts and you ruin it for everyone else."

"I ruin the true truth with facts?" Bones said, looking at him in confusion.

"Yeah and you ruin it for the squint squad too by making them work on a case about a guy who's been sealed up in a fallout shelter for fifty years," Booth continued, seizing the opening she'd given him and hoping that he could use it to its fullest extent.

"Well, how would you like me to spend my Christmas?" Bones asked, turning to look directly at him.

"Christmas," Booth said, leaning in closer to her, "is the perfect time to re-examine your standing with... you know," he finished, pointing upwads.

He might not believe in the traditional _idea _of God- what he'd seen as Angel had left him uncertain if there was a _single_ all-powerful entity responsible for everything, even if he knew that there was _something _up there-, but Christianity still had a good message behind it, and acknowledging the existence of a higher power of any kind was definitely _something _you should keep in mind.

Sometimes, in Booth's experience, everyone needed to believe there was something out there greater than yourself looking out for you; just because the Powers so rarely took action when he'd actually _needed _them didn't mean he didn't recognise the moments when they _had _helped him...

"A helicopter pad?" Bones asked, cutting off Booth's reflective train of thought.

"Oh, right, right," he said, trying to bring his focus back with a mocking joke (How long were these drugs meant to take to work their way through his system?). "You can't measure the man upstairs in the beaker, so he can't possibly exist."

"The man upstairs?" Bones repeated in confusion.

"Mmm," Booth nodded, smiling slightly as he continued to stare at her, waving a finger in her face to make sure she got his point. "You know, you don't know if you're sick but you're more than willing to take drugs just in case. Seems to me you could give the man upstairs the same benefit of the doubt that you do an invisible fungus, mmm?"

For a moment, the two simply stared at each other, and then Booth walked away, pausing only briefly to grab the hat as he departed.

Without his vampiric abilities, he couldn't do anything to _make _her believe there was something else out there; all he could do was say his piece and let her react to it as she saw fit.

* * *

When Booth had first been presented with Lionel's missing person's file, his first thought had been simply to let Bones know what he'd found, but when he approached the Holographics lab where she was currently working, something inside him told him to slow down even before he started to hear her voice.

"Russ found our presents in my parents' room..." Bones was saying as he walked in through the door, prompting him to halt in the doorway as he watched Bones talking silently with Angela on a couch that had been positioned close to a holographically-created tree, "and Christmas Eve, while I was asleep, he snuck down and... made Christmas, trying to do the right thing for me."

"Christmas for his little sister," Angela said, prompting a brief flash of recollection from Booth of his own old role as an older brother to Kathy, back when he'd still been Liam; even at his worst, before Darla sired him, he'd always tried to do what he could to help her, ranging from helping her to say her prayers to taking her out riding when things became rough at home...

Right up to the moment when he'd walked out on her after one last argument, only to come back and drink her blood as one of his first crimes as a vampire.

"But when I came down, and saw the lights and the presents..." Bones began, a slight tremor in her voice as she spoke.

"You thought your parents were back," Angela finished for her.

"I just expected to see them sitting there, drinking their coffee, watching Russ and me open our presents," Bones finished, looking tearfully over at Angela, a simple dejection at her childhood inability to comprehend what her brother had done for her that Booth sympathised with all too well; he'd always cared for Kathy as Liam, but he'd never realised just how much he'd depended on her simple faith in him until she wasn't there to have it any more.

"Oh my God," Angela said, leaning over to place a sympathetic hand on Bones's arm as Booth just stood silently behind them, wishing he could tell that beautiful, broken forensic anthropologist just how much he understood her in that moment.

"I kind of lost it," Bones continued, her head shaking slightly as she subconsciously tried to deny the painful memory- something that Angel had long experience with- even as she clearly resolved to continued. "I refused to open the presents until they came back. It was like I told Russ he wasn't enough family for me. Before New Year's, he... went out west to... work... and I was in the foster system."

"Excuse me?" Booth said, stepping forward slightly to draw their attention back to him; judging by how close Bones looked to a breakdown, it would probably be best for everyone if he stepped in now before anyone said anything they'd regret later. "We have, uh, Lionel's missing persons file."

Nodding briefly at him, Bones turned back to look at Angela.

"The tree is really, really beautiful, Ange," she said, a tearful smile on her face even as she clearly began to bring herself under control once again. "Really."

With that, she stood up and walked over to take the file from him, the two of them walking out of the lab as Angela watched them.

* * *

As he sat at the bar at Wong Fu's, casually drinking his beer as he savoured the simple freedom of being out of the lab once again, Booth wasn't sure what he appreciated more; the upcoming meeting with Parker to spend what was left of Christmas with him, or the unique chance he'd had to bond with the squint squad over the last couple of days.

It hadn't exactly been an ideal situation, he admitted, but after so long barely able to spend more than a few minutes at a time between investigations with the rest of the squints- mostly when he came into the Jeffersonian he spoke for a bit with Bones and that was that-, he'd really enjoyed the chance to spend time with them when they _didn't _have a murder dominating their time. From learning about Goodman's daughters, to the unexpected twist revelation of the identity of Angela's father, to Zach's surprising fondness for a family-orientated Christmas, to Bones's issues with the holiday...

It hadn't all been cheery, but it had been... nice, he supposed was the best term.

For the first time since he'd said his last goodbyes to Spike and Illyria- the only members of his original team left conscious and standing; Gunn was still in a coma and Lorne had 'ascended' to that higher plane following that attempted disruption of the Music of the Spheres-, he'd actually felt like he was part of a _family_ again, even if the other squints probably didn't think of him that way...

Looking up at the sound of footsteps, Booth smiled as he saw Bones walking up to sit down alongside him, Sid almost automatically handing her a drink as she did so.

"Drinks?" she said, looking at him in surprise.

"Ah yes," Sid said, smiling at her, a grin that fitted his current attire of a Santa hat. "Christmas spirits, well, they come in... many a guise."

"Cheers," Booth said, holding up his own mug, he, Sid and Bones exchanging briefly clinks of their glasses before Sid walked off to attend to other customers.

"Ivy Gillespie came to the lab after you left with her granddaughter," Bones said, turning to look at Booth with a smile after a brief sip of her drink.

Booth couldn't help but smile at that comment; he could already picture how _that _particular scene had gone...

"Don't you want to know what happened?" Bones asked, still smiling at him even if she didn't fully understand why he was doing it himself.

"I know what happened," Booth replied, looking back at her with his own smile. "You told her about Careful Lionel. You showed her the letters, the tickets, she cried, but you made her happy."

"Not to mention I gave her a penny worth over a hundred thousand dollars," Bones pointed out.

"She won't care about that today," Booth replied, reflecting on how he'd felt back when Connor had told him that he'd forgiven him; after everything else that they'd been through over the years since Connor's birth, the simple knowledge that Connor forgave him had been everything he needed. "You just gave somebody the best Christmas gift they could ever get. Who's the secret Santa now?"

"Stop," Bones replied, prompting the robot Zach had given him to give to Parker- currently standing on the bar table beside him, waiting for Parker to come and receive it- to lean forward and start doing push-ups.

"Oh," Booth said, exchanging amused laughs with Bones as they looked at the robot. "That weirdo assistant of yours just made me the coolest dad in the world."

"Daddy!" Parker's voice suddenly yelled, Booth looking up in time to briefly see the FBI agent who'd been keeping an eye on Parker during his quarantine at the door before his arms were filled with the small, warm body of his son.

"Hey, look," he said, picking up the robot to show it to Parker with a broad smile; he might have enjoyed the occasional moment when he'd bonded with Connor over fighting together- even if Connor had been intending to betray him to 'avenge' Holtz-, but there was something nice about giving Parker a chance at a more normal childhood. "Look at this thing."

"Does it flip?" Parker asked, taking the robot to study it more closely.

"It can flip, trip, swim, whatever you want," Booth replied, before he leaned in to whisper in his son's ear, indicating Bones with a slight nod of his head. "Can you say Merry Christmas?"

"Merry Christmas," Parker said, waving briefly at Bones after she waved back.

Even as Booth walked off out of the bar, he couldn't resist a slight smile at the meeting that had just taken place; the two most important people in his new life had finally met...

He didn't allow himself to consider the implications of that automatic thought; the fact that his relationship with Tessa had only ended recently was the _least_ of the reasons for him not to think of Bones that way...


	11. The Woman at the Airport

Disclaimer: I own neither Angel or anything associated with him, and "Bones" is equally out of my reach control-wise

Feedback: Appreciated

AN: And here we have it; "The Woman at the Airport", in which Booth returns to his/Angel's old stomping grounds (Along with an original scene that I felt _had _to be written)

Angel of the Bones

"Do we have to go through this every time?" Doctor Goodman asked as he sat behind his desk and looked in frustration at the two partners.

"Exactly," Booth began.

"Booth can't just walk in and say 'pack your bags; we're going to LA'," Bones interrupted, snapping her fingers to emphasise her point (Despite himself, Booth had to admit to being impressed; she was coming along pretty well at the whole 'being normal' thing).

"Oh, yeah, yeah, the whole Ice Age warrior thing," Booth said, nodding in feigned understanding (He might have recognised the power of the past thanks to his time as Angel, but researching that kind of thing just for the sake of researching it had never entirely made sense to him).

"Iron Age," Bones and Goodman corrected him simultaneously in a bored voice that reminded him of Cordelia when he'd said something socially stupid.

"And that's not the only thing," Bones added.

"Homeland Security has asked Doctor Brennan to identify three bodies found dead in..." Goodman began, indicating her with one hand as he spoke.

"I'm not allowed to say," Bones interjected (Not that Booth minded either way; if the government wanted Bones somewhere else, she was a valuable enough resource- as much as he thought of her as a person beyond her talents- that they wouldn't send her anywhere dangerous without a decent security detachment).

"The point is, Agent Booth," Goodman said, turning to face Booth, "Doctor Brennan is in great demand on several pressing cases and she's needed here at the museum. Why should I send her to California?"

"Sexy case in Hollywood," Booth replied, a slight smile on his face at the thought. "How much more good press could the Jeffersonian get?"

He wasn't denying that the prospect of taking Bones to 'his' old city was an intriguing one as well- it had been far too long since he'd been to Los Angeles, even if he doubted that he'd run into any of his old friends on this case; it would be too awkward to explain to either the friend or Bones why him being in the sunlight was something that people shouldn't be concerned about-, but Goodman's sudden lean forward suggested that what explanations he'd given had been sufficient to inspire the former archaeologist's interest.

"But Doctor Goodman," Bones protested, realising that Booth's words had made an impact on her boss, "you said the Iron Age warrior was of the highest priority?"

"I can step in on that case," Goodman said, tilting his head slightly in an amused manner. "You pack your bags.

Booth couldn't resist the temptation to smile over at Bones as Goodman voiced his decision.

_Back to the city of Angels I go_... he reflected as he stood up and headed for the door, calling briefly back at Bones to let her know he'd be outside even as his thoughts focused on what was coming up.

Maybe _now _he'd manage to see the parts of Los Angeles that attracted people there now that he didn't have to worry about the demon side of the equation...

* * *

Looking back on his return visit to the city that had been his home for the better part of five years so far, Booth had to admit that nothing had gone entirely as he had expected it would. Not only had he not had the time even to take a brief look at his old office or the Hyperion- not that either of them would be the same; not only had both the original Angel Investigations office and the Wolfram & Hart building been destroyed even before he left the city, but from what he'd gathered in his research the Hyperion had returned to its old closed state after he'd left and the rest of the team had gone... wherever they'd gone..., but he was definitely _not _getting a look at the lives that people came to Los Angeles to find.

Granted, he wasn't here to live that kind of life himself, but that didn't change the fact that so far Los Angeles wasn't looking that much more appealing to a human resident than it would to someone in the demonic side of things; the hotel rooms they were in might be nice, but that was about it.

"According to LAPD," Bones said as they sat opposite Ivana Bardu, head of the escort agency that they had tracked the victim to, "a black market breast implant from the same shipment showed up in another girl from Aphrodite Escorts."

"Are you missing anyone?" Special Agent Tricia Finn- Booth couldn't help but wonder if she was some relation to Riley; little connections to his past as Angel always niggled at him in that regard- asked the older woman, with an abruptness that put Booth briefly in mind of Cordelia.

"We're not looking into your business, Miss Bardu," Booth put in; remembering the issues that Madame Dorion had had with his presence when he was trying to help David Nabbit the first time, it seemed like the most obvious explanation for her current discomfort. "We're just trying to solve a murder."

"I haven't heard from Rachel in two weeks," Miss Bardu said with a casual nonchalance.

"Is that unusual?" Finn asked.

"I prefer to ask the questions my own way, Agent Finn," Booth said, looking briefly up at her, noting but otherwise ignoring her slightly hurt expression at his words. "Thanks."

"Rachel booked out at a one week rate," Miss Bardu replied, apparently unconcerned about the interruption but with a slight apprehension in her tone that at least gave Booth an indication that she was genuinely concerned about the missing girl. "She knows to check in with me if the client wants to extend the contract. It's time to worry."

"Do any of these woman resemble Rachel?" Bones asked, passing her a folder containing some of the digital representations that Angela had made of their victim's possible facial structure (Booth was still a bit hazy on how plastic surgery could make that much of an impact on Angela's ability to make an accurate ID of their victim's appearance at the time of her death; he got that it would make the 'flesh markers'- or something like that- a bit confusing, but that was about it...).

"If I had to pick one," Miss Bardu said, briefly lifting one of the pictures out of the folder, "this is the closest, but not really."

"Does Rachel have a last name?" Booth asked as he took the folder back.

"Rachel wasn't even her real first name," Miss Bardu replied, a brief smile on her face.

"She goes by Rachel Ashaunce," Finn interjected from the corner.

"Rachel went to Vegas with a long-time customer," Miss Bardu continued.

"I need his name," Booth said, not entirely surprised when Miss Bardu simply leant back silently in her seat. "Miss Bardu, it's always the same story; beautiful young woman, somebody wants to meet her, somebody can't have her, somebody dies."

"Doctor Anton Kostov, an assembly line nip/tucker in town," Miss Bardu answered after a moment's pause. "If that's all?"

"Do you have a card, Miss Bardu?" Booth asked, smiling slightly at her while ignoring Bones's stare; it might give the wrong impression, but one thing he'd learned from his time as Angel was to never ignore any possible avenue of inquiry until it was totally exhausted.

"We provide a law enforcement discount," Miss Bardu said, smiling slightly at him as she passed him a card from her bag, Booth simply nodding in response as he took the offered card without bothering to correct her assumption.

"Miss Bardu," Bones asked, clearly wanting to get the conversation back to a topic that she was more comfortable with, "do you have any idea of what Rachel looked like before her plastic surgery?"

"Which time?" Miss Bardu responded with a brief smile before she walked out of the interview area.

Booth didn't need to be an expert in the field to know that things had just become more complicated; how were they meant to figure out what this woman looked like when she'd changed her face on _more _than one occasion...

* * *

As he walked through the office of the FBI's Los Angeles division- he almost wished he'd paid more attention to any contacts Wolfram & Hart had in this agency; as much as he hated that part of his life, he'd take anything if it meant improving his chances of figuring out who'd been killed in the first place-, Booth was just looking for somewhere quiet for him to sit and think when it happened.

"Agent Booth," Finn's voice said, prompting him to turn around and look in her direction as she ran up behind him, "can I have a moment, please?"

Without responding verbally, Booth turned around and walked off to a corner of the room before turning back to face the other agent.

"Have I done something to offend you?" Finn asked.

"Look," Booth said uncomfortably- even after so long in Los Angeles, he'd never felt comfortable discussing feelings like this with people he'd only just met-, "I'm really not into this whole, west coast, 'in touch with your feelings' thing, so-"

"Yeah," Finn said, speaking before he could properly start walking away, "um, I'm really good at my job, and I've been nothing but cooperative and helpful to you, but you just freeze me out."

Booth simply hummed in a noncommittal manner as he waited for her to say anything else.

"And I know you have nothing against working with women because you're partners with Doctor Brennan," Finn continued, "so your problem must be with me."

"Look, I don't have anything against you, Agent Finn," Booth said as he turned to look at her, Finn's appearance briefly replaced by the memory of a thin man with overly spiky hair who'd tried to be him without understanding his motives; David hadn't understood what he was really about until the end, and it had resulted in his death. "I just don't like the way you view the FBI."

"What do you mean?" Finn asked.

"This is a proud and noble job, but you're using it to get something else," Booth said, glaring pointedly at Finn as he spoke, hoping she'd get his point.

After all, he'd been where Agent Finn was himself once, even if his motives had been significantly different from hers; he wasn't denying that he'd essentially done what he'd just accused Finn of doing back when he'd first learned about the Shanshu Prophecy when he still ran Angel Investigations- fighting for what he'd get in the end rather than fighting for the sake of actually doing some good-, but working towards your spiritual redemption and working towards getting a movie-writing career were _far _from the same thing.

"My advice?" he said, as he took a couple of steps forward to stand more directly in front of her, his height once again working to his advantage. "Write your script, get an agent- Hell, have a little plastic surgery-, but quit using my Federal Bureau of Investigation as a stepping stool into something that you think is better, because in my book, there is nothing better."

As he walked away from Finn, Booth was surprised to find that he meant what he'd said.

Admittedly, he might have made a larger-scale impact when he was Angel in the supernatural sense, but he wasn't exactly useless now that he was Booth either; he'd already put away a decent few murderers even before he'd started working with Bones, and things just kept on improving now that they were permanent partners.

He could never go back to saving the world like he had done when he was Angel- he'd lost too much back then to really feel right in that role, and he _definitely _couldn't push himself physically the way he could before-, but Seeley Booth wasn't exactly a slouch when it came to saving lives his way.

* * *

"Scenario number one," Booth said as he and Bones drove down the street, their latest attempt to prompt a confession from the plastic surgeon having met with failure, "prostitute gets breast augmentation from plastic surgeon in return for sex; she threatens to tell on him."

"Plausible," Bones said, a slight uncertainty in her voice that hinted that she didn't agree with what she'd said.

"Scenario number two," Booth continued, trying to ignore his partner's tone, "jealous boyfriend…well, yada yada …you know the rest. Which do you like?"

"Neither," Bones replied.

"Because there's no real evidence," Booth said, allowing his slight frustration at their lack of information to seep through into his tone; they'd been working at this case for two days and they still knew nothing about the murder beyond the technical details.

"Unless you count a volley ball," Bones added, the two sitting in silence for a few metres before Bones spoke again. "Sounds like you're getting ready to quit."

"Quit?" Booth repeated, looking back at Bones for a moment before he sighed in frustration. "No, it's just the Deputy Director wants me to hand the case over to the LA field office; we're supposed to give Agent Finn what we've got and go home."

"What?" Bones said indignantly. "Forget it; you don't even _like_ Agent Finn, you think she's an idiot-"

"Bones," Booth interrupted, "the whole case is a bust; it's a blank. I mean, we don't have anything. We checked her apartment, nothing. There are no pictures, nothing. We don't know what she looks like, we don't know her name..."

"It's like she lived _on_ the world instead of in it," Bones said, prompting Booth to sharply glance at her at that last comment, his mind momentarily flashing back to the time when that phrase could have been applied to him.

He'd done what he could to fit into the world after he'd started dating Buffy, but even after all the time he'd spent with the rest of the team- even after his dates with Nina-, he'd only really felt like he'd _belonged _in the world again after he'd become human once more; his time as Angel had been defined by the distance between himself and the rest of the human race...

"You have to tell him he's wrong," Bones said, her words breaking into Booth's brain as he quickly went over what he'd heard while he was distracted; she was talking about the director saying he was at a loose end.

Taking his eyes off the road to look at her for a moment, Booth pulled in at the first likely-looking parking space he found, turned the engine off, and turned to look at her; this was definitely the kind of conversation that required _all _of his attention.

"Is he wrong?" he asked, hoping Bones wouldn't take it the wrong way; as much as he trusted her, the fact remained that they'd really had relatively little luck getting anywhere with this case so far.

"We know we're looking for someone who grew up in New England and moved here about eight years ago," Bones began, an earnest resolution in her voice as she spoke. "Her leg was crushed in a car accident when she was thirteen; she was on a boat shortly before she was murdered. We know some of her names and some of her faces."

"That's all your stuff," Booth said, unable to stop the depression entering his voice

"Usually by now we know more about my stuff."

"We have separate stuff?" Bones asked, looking at him in confusion.

"Yeah," Booth confirmed, his voice low as he looked back at his partner. "By now, I usually have a feel for the person, what they wanted, how they felt, what was going on in their lives; with this girl..."

He sighed. "Nothing."

He could think of so many reasons why someone in this girl's position _could _have died, but without any idea about her real name or history, there was no way to know what she _really _would have done...

"She thought she was ugly," Bones said after a moment's pause, prompting a brief spark of hope in Booth; it might be minor, but any moment where Bones demonstrated some kind of understanding of people was a step in the right direction in his book. "She did everything she could to make herself beautiful… and all she did was make herself more invisible."

"Everybody in this city thinks they're ugly, and nobody is," Booth said, shaking his head as he remembered Rebecca Lowell's attempt to get him to turn her; she might not have been able to get the kind of roles that had made her career any more, but that shouldn't have stopped her from trying to go beyond that to become something new. "I'm starting to get why you hate anonymous death so much."

"We were born unique," Bones said (Booth wondered how she'd react if she ever learned just how unique he'd been before they'd met). "Our experiences mold and change us; we become someone, all of us, and to have that taken away by murder, to be _erased_ from existence against our will, it's just-"

"Evil?" Booth suggested.

It was one of those rare moments when Bones was particularly passionate about the current topic she was discussing while he could simultaneously relate to the topic. He didn't always get her when she was talking about bones as part of her archaeological duties- or even when she was talking about some details relating to their current victims-, but for the moment, even if it wasn't the same kind of evil that he was familiar with from his time as Angel, they were discussing something that both of them felt passionate about.

"Unacceptable," Bones corrected, still talking rapidly (Booth briefly contemplated her reaction if she knew of the evil he'd seen in his life, and just as quickly rejected it; she had enough to deal with human monsters without being given an idea of the evil he had once fought). "These bones you bring me, I give them a face. I say their names out loud. I return them to their loved ones and you arrest the bad guy; I like that."

"So do I," Booth said, smiling back at her despite his still-depressed mood.

It was one part of his life as Booth that he definitely preferred to his time as Angel; at least as Booth, he was able to give people answers, whereas when he'd been Angel he'd sometimes had to _conceal _the answers from the bereaved due to their potential inability to understand what had happened to their loved ones.

It might be depressing that he failed to save them, but at least he could say that he could give the victim's family answers when he couldn't do anything else for them.

"I feel like we should be arresting these doctors," Bones said, the moment apparently passing for her almost as quickly as it had originally come, "because whether they killed her or not they… they still erased her."

"Well..." Booth said, putting his sunglasses back on as he turned his attention back to the road in preparation for starting the car, "maybe I could hold Cullen off for a day."

"It's not good enough," Bones said, but the slight tone of acknowledgement in her voice was enough for Booth.

"You're welcome," Booth replied, as he started the car and began to drive away just as Bones's cell phone began to ring

"Brennan," she said as she answered the phone, pausing for a moment as she listened to the voice on the other end before she spoke again, a smile on her face at the news. "You compared the bones to the marks left on her jaw? That's… brilliant, Zack."

After another brief pause as she listened to the speaker on the other end of the line- and Booth could only hope that Zack was living up to Brennan's expectations of him; right now they needed a breakthrough in this case-, Bones spoke again. "Tell me he's in LA."

Before Booth could reach the point where he felt obliged to ask for information, Bones had terminated the connection and turned to look at him. "Doctor Henry Atlas, Rodeo Drive, Beverly Hills. Go."

With that instruction, Booth put his foot down on the accelerator and began to drive towards the named area, his mind already buzzing with the possibilities of what they'd find there as he listened to Bones's explanation for heading to this particular location.

Even if Doctor Atlas wasn't the murderer, the fact that he'd designed a rare tool that had served as the murder weapon was definitely _not _something they could dismiss as coincidence...

* * *

Later that following night, the case concluded, the killer arrested, and plans already in motion to contact the victim's parents, Booth found himself standing in front of the remains of a once-again-abandoned old hotel, Bones unaware of his current location as she rested in her bed.

It was probably a pointless thing to do, he acknowledged- his team hadn't used it as a headquarters in _this _plane of existence for over a year before he'd been given his Shanshu, and they'd spent so little time in it when they were in Hell that it hardly counted-, but after he'd vanished from that life so abruptly after setting his last couple of affairs in order, he'd have been lying if he claimed that he didn't feel any sense of nostalgia towards the building before him.

Besides, after the complete erasure of the Wolfram & Hart office after he and Wesley had forced them to expend so many resources to bring him back to life after his last fight in Hell- he sometimes wondered if they'd ever managed to recover _anything_ after he'd been given his Shanshu and thus escaped any possibility of fighting for their side in their planned Apocalypse-, coupled with the destruction of his original offices during Vocah's attack, out of all his residences over his eight years fighting alongside Buffy or fighting with his own team, this was the only one left standing, and hence the only true reminder he had left that his time as Angel had been real and not just some strange dream.

The hotel might be locked- and he wasn't going to enter it; it might not be _impossible _for him to gain access but it would probably attract too many questions if he was caught-, but after the slightly unnerving experience of meeting Doctor Atlas- that man's resemblance to Richard Wilkins was uncanny; the part of Booth that would always be Angel had to wonder if the man had been some distant relative of Sunnydale's now-deceased mayor from before the guy had made the deal that resulted in the development of Sunnydale-, Booth hadn't been able to resist another chance to look at the reminder of the good he'd accomplished in his life.

The demon that had once inhabited this hotel was gone, and, in a place whose history had once been defined by murder and destruction, the only thing that remained for those who had lived there were memories of a location where they could find some degree of safety and security from the chaos of the world around them…

And, for a few brief years, it had been the first place where the first vampire with a soul had found what could legitimately be thought of as his family (His bond with Buffy in Sunnydale had been an important connection, but he'd never really managed to _connect _with the other Scoobies while he was there; they'd been Buffy's friends rather than his own).

It had been a good, if strange, life while he lived there…

But it was gone.

This building before him was nothing but a reminder of his long-gone past; his life as Angel had been good, but even if he had retained his vampiric strength, he could never go back to the way things had been back in those days.

He was a different man now; he had a son, he had an official job, he had qualifications, he had paperwork, he had a passport…

He _existed_.

Looking at the hotel in front of him one last time, he smiled softly.

"Goodbye," he said, the comment being addressed to nobody in particular.

With that, he turned around and walked away from the hotel, the building that had been his home for three years left in its old state behind him, its previous history as far in the building's past as his own was.

Tomorrow morning, it was back to Washington with Bones, where whatever future awaited him would come for him once more.


	12. The Woman in the Car

Disclaimer: I own neither Angel or anything associated with him, and "Bones" is equally out of my reach control-wise

Feedback: Appreciated

Angel of the Bones

"Polina and Carl separated three months ago," Bones explained as she studied the papers containing the information they'd managed to find about their victim's family life. "Separate addresses for mom and dad."

"Well, we know that mom was in your lab," Booth said, allowing himself a brief smile as he drove; the simple parts of cases were always relaxing in their way. "Let's go find dad."

"You wrestle someone really small lately?" Bones asked from out of the blue as she studied the files, prompting Booth to look over at her inquiringly as she indicated the back of the car. "Car seat in the back."

"Oh, I had Parker for the weekend," Booth replied briefly, momentarily lost in the memory of the brief time with his son; it wasn't as much as he'd like, but after missing out on the entirety of Connor's childhood, any chance he got at time with Parker was something he treasured...

"I don't know how you do that," Bones said, the concentration on her face as she studied the files before her suggesting that she was almost thinking out loud.

"Install a car seat in an FBI vehicle?" Booth asked, in what he already knew was a poor attempt to lighten the mood in the face of what was bound to be an awkward question from his partner.

"Bring a kid into this world knowing what you know," Bones clarified, looking over at him with that familiar slightly exasperated sigh she used when he said something that she didn't think was funny. "I'll bet Parker was an accident, right? Because his mother wouldn't marry you?"

Despite his embarrassment, Booth couldn't help but laugh at the sudden line of questioning from his partner; these little moments when she displayed a lack of tact that would have shocked _Cordelia _were kind of cute, in their own way...

"What?" Bones asked, looking at him with that honest confusion about what she'd just done that Cordelia had lacked.

"It never occurred to you that that might be a sensitive topic?" Booth asked.

"Well, you could have gone with the very small felon story," Bones responded.

"I'm better for Parker being in the world," Booth replied bluntly, memories of the sense of purpose and resolution he'd felt when he first saw Connor's small body adding emphasis to his words (Parker's birth had still been important to him, but as his first-born son Connor's had just made more of an impact). "Someday, _you _will see that."

"No, I won't," Bones responded, her attention back on the files and her voice so low that it gave Booth the impression she wasn't even bothering to think in depth about her response.

"You'll change your mind," Booth replied simply; if Cordelia could see the positives of the 'mom' situation back when Connor had first come into their lives, he could _definitely _get Bones to a similar point (And where had _that _analogy come from?).

"I don't do that," Bones replied in the same low tone.

"You will," Booth replied automatically, his hands gripping the wheel in calm resolution.

"Yeah, maybe after I see how Carl Decker reacts when you tell him his wife is dead and his child has been kidnapped," Bones countered, which neatly put a lid on anything else Booth might have said on that particular topic; kidnap cases had always been a sensitive issue for him ever since he'd joined the Bureau due to the uncomfortable memories they evoked of how he'd lost Connor to Quor-toth so many years ago...

"Yeah, well," he said, trying to cover up his own discomfort at that assessment of the situation before Bones could say anything else, "statistically speaking, we are going to find Donovan with his dad."

"What?" Bones asked, looking at him in sudden confusion. "Why?"

"Why?" Booth repeated, shrugging as he spoke. "Because most kidnappings happen by estranged spouses."

"You're certainly making the whole domestic scene more and more attractive," Bones commented before she turned her attention back to the files, leaving Booth to simply look reflectively at her and wonder how she would react if he explained his _entire _reasoning to her...

* * *

"Well," Cullen said, the two investigators now waiting in Cullen's office for the information they needed about Decker's protective detail, "at least nobody got shot... probably 'cause she didn't have a gun."

"Sir," Booth said, hoping to draw Bones's thoughts away from that avenue- distracting her from anything might be a long shot given her IQ, he knew, but anything to stop her having an excuse to gain the ability to cause further damage-, "why is Carl Decker's home being watched by US Marshals?"

"Carl Decker is a Federal witness under witness protection," Cullen answered, his arms folded as he addressed the two investigators. "He's scheduled to appear before a grand jury in two days."

"Is this a mob thing?" Booth asked; major trials being involved in Decker's life gave him the first semblance of a motive he'd had since he started investigating this case.

"Decker designs body armour for KBC Systems," Cullen answered, pacing his office slightly as he explained; evidently the issue was a complicated one. "He says they knowingly sent defective armour to Iraq; the justice department believes him, so they moved him to a safe house."

"Does the justice department think that Decker is in danger from the company?" Bones asked.

"He thinks he is," Cullen responded. "They want him to testify, they play along."

"Well, does Decker know that his wife has been killed and his child has been kidnapped?" Booth asked, already guessing where this was going.

"No," Cullen replied, shaking his head briefly at Booth. "And they don't want him to know."

"Why?" Bones asked (How someone could be simultaneously so cynical and so naive was a mystery to Booth, but it was still fascinating).

"Because it might prevent him from testifying," Booth clarified, partly wishing he couldn't see their point; there were times when his ability to take in the 'big picture' _really _made him feel like moral garbage...

"Their point of view is there is nothing to be gained from him knowing," Cullen added, his voice resolute as he looked between the two.

"Except maybe Decker chooses not to testify and they don't kill his son," Bones pointed out, her usual habit of cutting to the point impressing and frustrating Booth as it always did. "Shouldn't that be his decision?"

"Justice estimates that KBC Systems is directly responsible for thirty deaths and hundreds of injuries," Cullen countered as he walked up to his desk. "They're taking a larger view; it's complicated."

"His wife is dead and his child is missing; that's not so complicated," Booth countered; even with Gunn to offer him legal advice back in the day, he'd never understood why some people felt the need to make everything so damn _complicated_...

"No one is stopping you from investigating those crimes-" Cullen began.

"He's a material witness," Booth interjected; as much as he tried to respect his superiors, this was one issue where he definitely had to make his thoughts on the topic known. "I need access to him."

"Well, we know Decker didn't kill his wife- he was in custody of US Marshals-, so start looking someplace else," Cullen elaborated, before he sighed, turned around, and walked out of the office. "Harsh life, Booth; deal with it."

"Does he not like me?" Bones asked uncertainly, as Cullen vanished from view.

"I don't know," Booth replied, shaking his head in frustration as he turned away from his partner.

There were definitely some situations that _no _amount of life experience could fully prepare you for, and explaining in detail to Doctor Temperance Brennan just how she could rub some people up the wrong way was one of them...

* * *

As he stood on the other side of Bones's desk, watching a video of Decker teaching Donovan how to ride a bike, Booth had to wonder at the variety of ways people came up with as opportunities for parent/child bonding in the present; he and his father had practically spent _no _time together while he was growing up (When he was Liam, anyway; things with _Booth's _father led to areas that he wouldn't have wanted to talk about even if it _didn't _feel a bit like lying to discuss them), and nowadays there were so many ways and means for them to spend time together it was almost ridiculous (Although he _did _enjoy the chance to do most of them with Parker)...

The sudden pausing of the tape cut off his reflections, prompting him to glance inquiringly over at his partner. "Why'd you stop?"

"What are we hoping to learn from this tape?" Bones asked, continuing to talk even as Booth sighed in exasperation. "We know Carl Decker didn't kidnap his own child. The mother is dead and the boy-"

"And the boy might be dead, too," Booth finished for her; he didn't want to hear how she would have phrased her assessment of the situation.

"Well, I'm just wondering..." Bones began, looking quizzically at him as she indicated the screen. "What is the benefit of watching this tape?"

"You put names to faces, you get a sense of human beings..." Booth elaborated, waving a hand slightly to try and express the variety of information that could be gained (He acknowledged that he wouldn't have done this kind of thing as Angel, but with demons you often had to move a _lot _faster to find what you had to stop; at least the information they'd gathered about this case so far suggested they had time to try and form a complete picture of the situation). "Aw, c'mon, Bones; you're the anthropologist, what does this tape tell you?"

"Learning to ride a bicycle is a... kind of rite of passage," Bones replied, indicating the screen with the remote. "It has anthropological significance."

"Really?" Booth asked, curious despite himself as to how Bones had come to that assessment.

"It carries meaning beyond the simple mechanics of learning to ride a bike," Bones continued.

"Are you being psychological?" Booth asked, unable to stop a slight smile despite the grim nature of the current case; after all the times she'd said that she didn't believe in psychology, to hear her essentially arguing _for _it...

"Definitely not," Bones refuted. "Psychology is about the _individual_; I'm speaking to a set of cultural proxies and mores."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Booth asked.

"The father is tight," Bones explained, turning around to better indicate the frozen image on the TV screen before them. "He's holding his arms, touching his mouth."

"So he's nervous," Booth said. "So what?"

"Look at the boy," Bones continued, indicating the screen once again. "He's relaxed. He's... he's not afraid."

"Oh, so why was the boy stalling then, huh?" Booth countered (He knew that he sounded overly hostile, but arguing with Bones gave him something to focus on apart from the missing kid).

"He's not; the father is," Bones clarified. "The son understands that on some level and he's enabling his father to reach some level of comfort. It's a symbiotic relationship."

Despite his own incredulity at the idea of Bones being this insightful, Booth had to admit that she had a certain point.

After all, back before he'd been abducted by Holtz, hadn't Connor shown an instinctive 'trust'- of sorts, anyway; he freely acknowledged that it could just have been the vampire part of Connor's nature recognising him as 'sire'- of Angel even when he was in his 'vamp face'?

Kids could sometimes get a whole lot more than their parents realised...

"Relationship," he said, trying to pass off his moment of thought as he looked at Bones with a slight smile. "That's psychology."

"The boy trusts his father, absolutely," Bones continued, only briefly acknowledging his point. "He's confident. The father wishes he didn't have to do this but he's accepted that he must in his role as a father."

Booth let out a contemplative huff at that assessment.

"What?" Bones asked

"Probably the same way Decker felt about being a whistle blower," Booth clarified, although he acknowledged that Bones's statement was accurate in its original content as well; he'd certainly made more than one difficult decision when he was trying to help Connor, even if Connor definitely hadn't trusted _him _at the time...

"That's psychology and it's of no use to us in this current investigation," Bones said, pointing the remote at him in a reinforcing manner that brought his mind back to the current topic; reflections about Connor could wait until Donovan Decker was safe.

"Just... push play, OK?" Booth asked, getting himself back into position leaning against Bones's desk as he looked at the screen.

Even as the tape started, Booth was already trying to figure out what kind of answer they could provide for the most obviously challenging question facing them at this time.

How the _hell _were they going to find that kid...?

* * *

As he sat in the KBC Systems conference room, staring at company head Trent Seward, Booth hated to admit it even to himself, but he almost hoped this guy _was _responsible for Donovan's abduction, if only because he _really _wanted an excuse to hit the bastard; he reminded him far too much of some of the people he'd had to deal with during his time at Wolfram & Hart for Booth to feel _remotely _relaxed.

"Carl Decker is not only a disgruntled employee," Seward said, in a tone that suggested

"Uh, what... what's the term?"

"As a lawyer," the blond woman whose cold attitude reminded him of Lilah- although that might have just been simple transference; he never liked people who treated any branch of law enforcement as just a job- "the legal term is, 'nuts and a pain in the ass'."

"Oppositional defiance disorder and paranoia is what I read," Seward commented (The fact that he didn't even seem to be that bothered about one of his even former employees only reinforced Booth's increasingly-lowering opinion of the man before him).

"Like I said," the lawyer said nonchalantly, "nuts and a pain in the ass."

"Read where?" Booth asked, looking at the two with a neutral expression. "Paranoia; you read that where?"

In response, the lawyer slid a blue file in the table in front of them over to him, Booth only requiring a brief glance at its contents to know what it was about.

"You had Carl Decker investigated?" he asked, studying the papers in front of him; the things some people were willing to do for money disgusted him at times.

"He's making extremely damaging accusations against the company," the lawyer commented, as though there was nothing untoward about their response to that situation.

"False accusations," Seward added (The more that man denied it, the more Booth was sure it was true; he was trying _way _too hard to create the idea of himself as the victim for Booth's liking).

"Can you think of anyone who would want to kill his wife and kidnap his son?" Booth asked; if they weren't going to admit it, he might as well see what other suspects they had 'prepared' for him to investigate...

"It wasn't us," the lawyer said automatically.

"I didn't say it was," Booth countered.

"Oh please, we have to top your list of suspects," the lawyer said, the statement such a straightforwardly factual point that Booth wasn't sure if he should interpret it as overconfidence in their innocence, a ploy to misdirect him by drawing attention to their status, or simple frustration at being accused like that in the first place.

"Look," Seward said, "we have an in house system for dealing with whistle blowers. We encourage it. I served in 'nam, Agent Booth. I saw what soldiers see. If I read you correctly, you know what I mean."

The ironic thing was that Seward's assessment of Booth was both right and wrong- he might have memories of his time as an official soldier, but he'd been a _warrior _as Angel for far longer than he'd served in any army-, but he didn't feel inclined to share that under normal circumstances, and certainly not with a man he was finding himself increasingly disliking every moment he spent in his company.

"Army," he said, deciding that he might as well respond with the more 'realistic' answer if he wanted to avoid the possibility of causing more potential tension with the other man by contradicting him than he needed to. "75th regiment."

"Rangers lead the way," Seward said, with what was probably supposed to be a comradely smile, before he leaned forward with a more solemn, resolute expression. "I would never risk the lives of soldiers by knowingly providing them with defective armour, and I welcome Carl Decker's appearance at the grand jury because he is wrong."

"Carl Decker did brilliant work for us but he alienated everyone he worked with," the lawyer said, her tone clearly indicating that she considered this conversation over. "You should look for your murderer and kidnapper elsewhere."

* * *

"You want to give me one good reason why I shouldn't charge you with attempted murder, Mr. Decker?" Cullen asked the other man as they sat in a conference room.

"You think I went after Seward out of vengeance?" Decker countered, the almost bald man glaring in frustration at everyone around him.

"Looks like vengeance," Cullen said bluntly, a statement that Booth had to agree with; even if Decker had 'convinced' himself that threatening Seward with a gun was a rational way to deal with the situation, it was still the same kind of excessive force he'd used when he'd abducted Holland Manners in order to find out if there was any way to access Quor-toth, and he _definitely _knew what kind of mental state he'd been in at that time...

"KBC Systems hired people to kill my wife and kidnap my child," Decker responded, pain and desperation clear in his eyes. "Think rationally for a moment."

"That makes sense," Bones noted. "If KBC Systems is behind the kidnapping then Seward would be the one to call it off."

"A rational human being," Decker commented, before he turned to look at Bones. "How did you find yourself amongst these people?"

"Sir," Booth said [remembers how he would have done what Decker did once but has moved on since then], "we are trying to help."

"Excellent," Decker said, leaning over to more directly address him. "Hold your gun to Trent Seward's head and force him to let my son go."

"There's no compelling evidence that Trent Stewart was the man who ordered the kidnapping of your son," Cullen pointed out, clearly trying to restore some order to the current debate.

"I _personally_ calculated the penetration tolerances for the combat flack jackets," Decker said. "The company found my calculations to be 'excessively conservative'. Thirty soldiers died. Trent Seward will do _anything_ to prevent me from testifying. He or someone working for him kidnapped my child and killed my wife."

That was the essential problem with the need for valid evidence in these cases, when Booth thought about it; the evidence might all _point _to KBC Systems, but there was still nothing in this case to _confirm _that they were the ones responsible and it wasn't just some independent nut with a personal grudge...

"If you want to get Trent Seward," the other man in the room- Booth was fairly sure that he was involved with the prosecution in the current case, but he wouldn't like to swear to it; keeping track of things in these kind of cases could be hard sometimes- said, "go into that grand jury and tell them what you know."

"And the kidnappers will kill my boy," Decker said bluntly.

This was one of those times when Booth _really _hated the fact that he didn't have the option of just killing the bad guys now that he was human; it was so much simpler to have that kind of view when you were dealing with soulless monsters...

"With all due respect for what you're going through emotionally, sir," Cullen said, sounding slightly uncomfortable as he said his piece- now that Booth thought about it, he thought he recalled reference to Cullen being a father himself-, "Mr. Weeks is not wrong."

"This is my son," Decker said, clearly fighting back tears as he spoke. "I love him, and if there's even a _slight_ chance that I can save his life by shutting up... then that's what I'll do…Shut the hell up."

Booth wasn't sure if it made him a better or worse father than Decker to know that he could have spoken in that situation if he thought it was serious enough, although the fact that Connor would have been old enough to accept _why _he had to do something like that might have helped (He would _not _think about someone doing this to him with _Parker_)...

"And what about the soldiers?" Weeks asked in frustration.

"Look," Decker began, his self-control clearly slipping as his voice shook, "analytically, I understand that many lives outweigh the one, but I _cannot_ trade my son's life."

"Have you considered that, by not testifying, your wife will have died in vain?" Weeks protested.

"Shut it up, Weeks," Cullen said, looking in frustration at the other man. "If you people had protected Mr. Decker and his family properly, we wouldn't even be here."

"Let's go," Weeks said, rolling his eyes in a manner that failed to give the rest of the people in the room any kind of encouragement as he stood up, motioning for Decker to do the same before the analyst turned to look at Booth.

"The only way that I will testify is if I see you with my son," he said.

Booth wasn't sure what he'd done to merit Decker trusting him enough to give him that kind of role, but he already knew that he was going to have to do everything he could to fulfil that charge; even if he hadn't _personally _thought in this kind of combat- regardless of what his records and memories said-, soldiers deserved the best quality protection they could be given, which meant that Decker _had _to be available to testify in the upcoming case.

"Mr Decker," he said, standing up to address the other man properly as Decker's 'guards' took him to the door, "you and Donovan, you have a code word? Something to let him know that you sent me?"

"Paladin," Decker said at last. "Tell Donovan Paladin."

With that, Decker and Weeks left the room, leaving Bones and Cullen looking at him with a slight hint of amusement on their faces.

"Paladin," Cullen said reflectively as he stood up and adjusted his suit. "Defender of the faith, protector. Suits you, Booth."

Booth was just grateful that Cullen walked out of the room after that; after all the time he'd spent destroying symbols of faith with Darla as Angelus, he wasn't sure how he felt about being the protector of any kind of faith (Even his religion these days was mainly a moral compass for him rather than something he would _defend_; it was just easier to believe in God than explain why having faith in his friends- particularly Cordelia- was such a big deal to him).

"You know what?" Bones said, looking at him with the expression of contemplative amusement she always had when someone explained something related to emotions to her. "You tough guys are all very sentimental."

* * *

Later that night, with the case resolved and Donovan returned to his father- his hand would probably never be the same, but they could probably arrange for the finger or a variation of it to be reattached to help Donovan live some degree of a normal life-, Booth sat silently in his flat, studying the photographs in front of him.

As much as Bones might not understand how he could see good in the world despite his job, he'd witnessed enough miracles in his life- starting with the fact that he had even regained the ability to _care _about other people in the first place and taking it from there- to know that sometimes things happened for a reason, even if that reason wasn't obvious.

Donovan might have been put in danger by his father's actions, but at the same time he'd given his father something to live _for _in a world that didn't always give you anything but things you'd be willing to _die_ for; even if Bones couldn't understand that kind of distinction yet, it _was _an important one.

Back when he'd been a vampire, he'd spent so long just existing in the world; Buffy and his friends at Angel Investigations had given him a purpose, but Connor's birth had given him a _reason_ to keep fighting even after he'd thought all the reasons he might use had ceased to apply to him (Buffy had moved on, Cordelia accepted him as he was even if he didn't Shanshu, things like that...).

And now...

As unconventional as his upbringing had been, Connor had generally done well for himself; the last time he'd seen his son, Connor had settled into a fairly comfortable life as a law student, championing victims on a different field of battle from his father, while also spending some nights out on the town to deal with any vampires or demons that might appear in his city, living a life outside of his original history as the son of the vampire with a soul.

It might not be the most conventional life or way of doing things, but it got the job done, and Connor was content; in the end, that was what really mattered.

It was what Bones wouldn't allow herself to see, really; the knowledge that, even if he died, some part of him would still be out there, continuing his legacy of protecting those who couldn't protect themselves...


	13. The Superhero in the Alley

Disclaimer: I own neither Angel or anything associated with him, and "Bones" is equally out of my reach control-wise

Feedback: Appreciated

AN: Reference is made here to the _Angel_ novel "Impressions"; set around Season Three of _Angel_, the novel featured Angel Investigations dealing with David, a photography student who saw Angel in action during his early days in Los Angeles and began to spend time posing as Angel for the thrill of it, eventually coming to the team's attention after his lack of supernatural knowledge resulted in a memorial stone imprinted with the last memories of a demon warrior releasing a wave of hostility across Los Angeles, culminating in David sacrificing himself to save the original Angel as he finally understood what it truly meant to be the vampire in question

Angel of the Bones

As he walked into the room of their murder victim, Booth only needed to take a brief look at the walls to know that he'd need to make sure that he remembered everything he could about graphic novels and comic books; given the costume that Warren had been wearing when he was found, this kid's interest in comics must have played _some _part in his death.

He might have only had limited knowledge of the genre when he'd been Angel- mostly based on some comments Gunn had made about particular issues that he'd read up on to satisfy his own curiosity-, but he'd found himself getting into the concept more after he'd become Booth and had his own secrets to keep, but even a casual interest was enough for him to know that the sheer amount of comics on Warren's walls wasn't exactly normal.

"This is Warren's room," Warren's mother said, facing away from him and Bones as she studied what Booth guessed was a picture of Warren when he was younger. "No one's been up here since the detective first looked it over."

"The news said there was hardly anything left of him," Warren's stepfather- Booth wondered what had happened to the original father, but knew that it wasn't his place to ask unless something came up which might suggest it was relevant to the investigation- added awkwardly, only for his wife to put down the photo that she'd been studying earlier and leave the room, faint sobs trailing behind her.

"Can you think of anyone who might have wanted to... _harm_ Warren in any way?" Booth asked, looking awkwardly at their latest' victim's stepfather from his position on the edge of Warren's bed; he wanted to project a more relaxed attitude to compliment Bones's professional analysis of their surroundings.

"He was always by himself," the man replied, with an awkward shrug. "No friends, no enemies; he would spend all his time up here with his comic books and toys. He was a lonely kid, died before he even had a life. I really thought he had just run away."

For a moment, the other man seemed about to leave as he walked towards the door while Booth stood up from the bed, only to turn around once he reached the doorway to look back at them.

"We tried," he said, looking earnestly at them, as though he wanted to assure them that he hadn't been a neglectful father. "Tried to get him out of this place into some kind of real life. I even got him a job at the bowling alley, but he just spent all of his money on this... stuff."

As the man walked out of the house, Booth moved him down a few pegs on his mental chart of suspects; in a case like this, the stepparent was the more obvious candidate for murdering the stepchild so they didn't have to 'share' their spouse with the memory of the child's parent, but that guy had definitely cared about Warren even if he'd had trouble showing it.

"Unbelievable..." he muttered, trying to take his mind off thoughts about past cases as he studied Warren's collection. "This is quite the collection of comic books."

"Hodgins said that the cellulose mass was a graphic novel," Bones added, as she studied the photographs on Warren's desk. "He sent it to Angela for analysis and recovery."

"Sweet," Booth noted, as he picked up one of Warren's comics for closer observation.

"Sweet?" Bones repeated in confusion.

"Ah, he has _Batman_ #127, featuring the Hammer of Thor," Booth said, indicating the comic in his hands; he'd been going through one of his 'better' periods back when this comic had come out- even if that mainly meant that he was spending time in human habitation rather than interacting with anybody; he'd remained underground for most of the war after the submarine incident, but he'd developed a taste for more comfortable accommodation after the war ended. "This is worth about three hundred bucks."

"Booth," Bones said, looking at him with a slight smile, "are you a nerd?"

"First of all, you mean geek, and no, I'm not, OK?" Booth countered. "It's quite normal for an American male to read comic books."

He might not have been the 'average' American male, but his time with Gunn and the memories he'd 'received' as Booth had given him enough information to form a fairly detailed knowledge of some prominent examples of the comic industry...

"I find it hard to believe you have anything in common with Warren Granger," Bones responded.

"Oh, you mean isolated with an inner secret life?" Booth replied; that might have applied to him in the past- albeit for different reasons than Warren's simple apparent shyness-, but he was _definitely _past that stage of his existence now. "No, I'd say you were more like Warren."

Bones's response to that was interrupted as her phone vibrated, prompting her to glance at it as Booth walked over to glance at a plastic bag in a corner of Warren's room.

"Zack discovered some significant hairline peri fractures on the right and left ulnae," Bones said, as Booth noted the name on the bag; _Karma Comics_. "It's his arms."

"I _know _ulna means forearm; I pay attention," Booth countered, putting the bag down as he glanced over at her. "I also know that perifracture means that the kid fought back, Bones."

"Small stature, a geek, and he fought back," Bones reflected, walking thoughtfully around the desk.

"Yeah, and he also got thrown from a roof," Booth countered (It was one reason that he hadn't liked that 'David' guy impersonating him; people trying to do stuff that they weren't physically capable of after being inspired by others just ended up getting into trouble).

"There's nothing but games here," Bones mused as she studied Warren's computer. "There's no journal, there's no documents, nothing personal. What did he do at his desk?" she continued, moving over to sit down in the chair as she ran her hand over the wood in front of her. "I mean there's a light, the rugs worn. He used this area for something; what was it?"

"Probably where he read his comic books," Booth suggested, just before Bones pulled a yellow piece of paper out of a drawer. Taking a pencil, she laid the paper out on the desk in front of her and rubbed it rapidly over the surface.

"I think Warren sat here, and wrote longhand with a ballpoint pen," she reflected, studying the text that her efforts were producing in a contemplative manner.

"That's pretty retro for a geek," Booth noted, leaning down to pick a comic up from the floor, taking in the image of the leather-clad man on the cover for only a moment before he dropped it on the desk in front of his partner. "At least we know where he got the idea for a costume; Citizen 14."

"A super hero," Bones concluded, the implications of Warren's choice of attire obvious to both of them.

* * *

"I don't like to judge an entire sub-culture," Bones commented as they drove away from the comic book store, their brief meeting with Warren's former associates still fresh in their minds, "but those people gave me the creeps."

"That's because they are creepy," Booth replied, feeling a need to elaborate as Bones looked back at him in a slightly critical manner. "What I mean is, those kids at the store are not a bunch of old good to you tutor you in math geeks. They were the uh, you know set the school on fire geeks. Dark nerds… Columbine nerds."

"Columbine?" Bones repeated, looking sceptically back at him. "You think Yasutani the Terrible is actually capable of murder?"

"I think they get high, you know," Booth clarified. "You know, they play these games, they lose their grip on reality, and, you know, they start to believe that they are these characters."

"You mean, like Warren out fighting crime?" Bones asked

_If only it was just that simple_... Booth reflected grimly.

He knew that he was overreacting, but the memory of that screwy little 'cult' he'd run into back in Sunnydale when he, Xander and Willow were investigating that 'Ford' guy- he couldn't even remember what it had been called, but he did remember the guy; back at that stage of his life, most of the stuff that personally affected Buffy had a tendency to stick better than the rest- didn't exactly help him; _those _nerds would have only hurt themselves with their personal 'delusions', and what these guys were doing had the possibility that they'd hurt others to further their own demented beliefs rather than just making a mistake that would hurt _themselves_...

"You know," he said, trying to take his mind off the events, "maybe Warren and that guy, the leader... Yasuhama… something ..."

"Yasutani the Terrible," Bones clarified (A part of Booth wondered if this had been how Buffy felt back when Giles had corrected her mispronunciation of demon's names back in the day, but seriously; how was _anyone _meant to remember stuff like that?).

"Yeah, Yasutani the Terrible," he confirmed. "Maybe him and that guy they got into this uh, you know, magic fight and it became real."

A part of him wondered if that might have been literally possible, but he pushed it aside quickly; his knowledge of magic might not have been that detailed even when he was a vampire- he'd always preferred to let others do the spellwork while he focused on the tactical side of things-, but he _did _know that you couldn't cast spells by _accident_ unless you already knew what you were doing, and anyone with that degree of skill would know not to lose control anyway...

"So, you're saying it wasn't Warren who was murdered, it was his character, Citizen Fourteen?" Bones asked uncertainly.

"They're so delusional they don't even know they have committed a crime," Booth muttered grimly.

"I'll get Hodgins to see if there was signs of drug use in Warren's hair," Bones replied after a moment's pause.

It wasn't much, but it was all that they could do right now, and Booth appreciated that she'd agreed to make the effort on what was admittedly a pretty slender hunch to begin with.

* * *

As he looked at Abigail- also known as 'Blue Minnow', for reasons he wasn't really sure about; how did people come _up _with this kind of stuff?-, Booth wondered what they were going to learn about Warren compared to what they were going to learn about 'Citizen 14'; he tried not to judge people, but memories of fantasy lives just brought up too many recollections of that whole mess with David and what the guy had done, both directly and indirectly, before he'd ended up dead from his carelessness...

"Blue Minnow," he said at last, thoughts of the past pushed aside as he looked at the girl opposite him. "That's your alter ego."

"Abigail Zeeley is my alter ego," Abigail replied (Booth wondered how they reached a point where they legitimately thought that applied; he might have gone from Liam to Angel to Booth- obviously discounting his time as Angelus because that hadn't been _him _where it really counted-, but

"Did you, Abigail, have a relationship with Warren Granger, or did the Blue Minnow have a relationship with Citizen 14?" Booth asked, staring back at the girl with the patience he'd mastered over his lifetime as Angel.

"Or any combination thereof?" Bones added, walking around his desk to stand in front of it.

"Neither," Abigail replied, as she continued to flick through Warren's now-restored comic book. "Warren had a girlfriend at Capital Bowl."

"What's the girlfriend's name, Abby?" Booth asked, already making a note to check out that bowling alley as their next stop; so far that place was the only location Warren seemed to go that wasn't comic-related...

"He never told us her name," Abigail replied, as she put down the comic to look directly at them. "It was just a... physical thing and it was almost over. Warren and I had a connection; he couldn't deny that. Before he disappeared he gave me his _entire_ Nue gaming collection, his favorite work besides his own."

"In his own work, he describes a woman known as the Opalescence," Bones put in, Booth indicating the relevant page in the comic to eliminate the possibility of a misunderstanding. "Do you believe that's supposed to be you?"

"What do you think?" Abigail responded, a slightly solemn tone to her voice that put Booth in mind of Buffy's tone when she'd come to see him that fateful Thanksgiving before the Mohra's attack; knowing one thing while _wishing _for another...

"We think it's another girl entirely," Bones stated bluntly.

"Does that bother you?" Booth asked after a moment's silence (How was it he'd reached a situation where _he _was the emotionally 'sensitive' one?).

"OK," Abigail said, sighing slightly, "maybe the others told you I'm _obsessed_, I know, because they never got Warren like I did. He was right; they _are _posers."

"But Warren wasn't?" Booth asked, trying to be delicate at the slight hint of tears in her voice and stance.

"Warren believed," Abigal replied (Booth didn't know if he should be worried about the way she said that; that kind of certainty was always unnerving). "He believed in truth, he believed in doing what was right. He _was _Citizen Fourteen; Citizen Fourteen is real."

"Warren didn't fit in with the others?" Bones asked.

"I just _said_," Abigail said, her voice now sounding increasingly upset, "Warren was _better_. He was a really nice guy."

"Are you aware that, uh, Jeremy Kuznetsky and, uh, Kenneth Bert had police records?" Booth asked, glancing over the relevant papers before he handed them over to Abigail.

"Yeah," Abigail said dismissively. "It's nothing interesting, though; it's like vandalism and trespassing. You can't take them seriously."

"What, as criminals?" Bones asked.

"As anything," Abigail clarified (Booth made a mental note of that as a positive sign; Abigail had issues, but she recognised when something had value and when it didn't).

"OK, well, what would be... interesting... as a crime?" Bones asked.

"Something that took courage," Abigail replied simply. "Something that meant something."

"Like murder?" Booth asked.

"Yeah... like murder," Abigail replied, with a solemn nod as she stared at the files.

Booth wasn't sure how to feel about that; on the one hand, at least Abigail recognised that murder _was _a big deal, but on the other hand, thinking that someone confronting a murderer was 'cool'- even if it wasn't explicitly stated- wasn't exactly reassuring.

* * *

As he walked into one of the side examination rooms of the lab, Booth was surprised to see Brennan sitting in front of a complicated-looking piece of machinery, blowing on it with no sign of doing anything else.

"What are you doing?" he asked, looking curiously at Bones.

"Breathing on the sample dissipates static electricity and makes it easier to cut," Bones replied, briefly glancing in his direction without moving her head, her tone the same tone he'd come to recognise her using when she was explaining something that she thought should be obvious.

"You seem nervous," Booth noted (He might not know her brilliantly yet, but he'd picked up how to read peoples' moods in less time than what they'd spent together back when he was Angelus).

"If I get this right," Bones clarified, as he walked around the table to sit down next to her, "I'll be able to tell you the age, sex, and race of Warren Granger's killer."

"Stew was the artist," Booth said, deciding that he might as well share his newly-discovered information now

"Really?" Bones asked, glancing back at him. "You think he killed Warren over artistic differences?"

"He also had a thing for Abby," Booth added.

"Wow," Bones whispered, her voice low.

"Yeah," Booth said, leaning back slightly in contemplation. "For a recluse, Warren Granger; he had his thumb in a lot of pies."

"You said before that Warren reminded you of me," Bones said, looking uncomfortably back at him. "You think I'm just like him that he hid from life by immersing himself in a fantasy world where he fought crime, and I do the same thing, only I don't have super powers. I... have science."

It was one of those rare moments where Booth wished that he could tell Bones about his past, not because he wanted her to see who _he _'really' was, but because he had another example from it that might have helped her; Fred might not have used the same type of science as Brennan to fight the good fight, but she'd still used science as her 'weapon of choice' more than anyone else he'd known back then.

"C'mon, Bones," he said, trying for the more obvious method of cheering her up, "you _do _fight crime; it's not a fantasy. As far as any normal person is concerned, you do have super powers."

"You're just saying that to me," Bones replied, as she began to turn a wheel on the side of the machine (Most likely 'shaving' the bone like she said she'd do earlier).

"No," Booth replied immediately. "I don't do that."

He had to lie to her about so many things already; he wouldn't lie to her about _that_...

"Yes you do," Bones countered, as she continued her work. "You lied to Warren Granger's mother to make her feel better. That seems to be your superpower."

"Look," Booth said, as Bones moved the piece of bone she'd been studying to a large black bowl filled with of some kind of liquid with a pair of tweezers- he wondered how Bones would react if she knew what he'd once been capable of, but this wasn't the time to reveal something like that (He didn't know if there ever _would _be a good time to do that, but this definitely wasn't it)-, "this piece of bone you're analyzing; how did it get lodged in Warren Granger's neck?"

"It was deposited by the same weapon that severed his spinal cord," Bones answered.

"Doesn't make it the killer's bone," Booth pointed out grimly (He hated to think about the possibility that there might be _another _dead body involved in this mess, but he had to consider every option).

"You're thinking a separate murder victim?" Bones asked, looking uncertainly at him.

"Opalescence, the woman he loved?" Booth suggested; it was a long shot, but it was the best idea he had so far.

"I don't think she's dead," Bones corrected, as she moved the thin strip of bone on to a glass slide.

"Why?" Booth asked.

"This is an arm bone," Bones explained, looking contemplatively at him. "Has anyone we've seen on this case been favouring her arm?"

"Not that I noticed," Booth said.

"That's because you're not an anthropologist with super powers," Bones replied, smiling slightly at him as she placed the glass slide on the microscope beside the device she'd been using earlier.

"That's good," Booth said, smiling slightly back at her.

* * *

As he sat opposite Lucy McGruder in the interrogation room, passing Warren's file across the table for her to look at the photograph of the boy who'd died trying to help her, Booth wondered why it was that people _still _tried to hold on to abusive relationships even in this day and age.

Women staying in this kind of relationship had at least made _some _degree of sense to him back when he was Angelus- social options for women at that point were so limited that they practically _had _to stay in the relationship out of a lack of options-, but these days, when women had more options, the idea that anyone would _choose _to stay in a relationship with someone who hit them, and would attempted to excuse it because the other person could be 'funny' sometimes- or other such excuses- made _no _sense to him...

"Warren knew what Ted did to you?" he asked, deciding to focus on the relevant issue rather than his own personal questions, the tearful blonde opposite him responding with a silent nod.

"Did you tell him?" Bones asked.

"I didn't have to; he saw one night," Lucy replied. "Ted hit me and Warren…Warren ran away."

"Why didn't you go to the police?" Bones asked.

"Because..." Lucy said, slightly hesitantly, before she began to recount another variation of the story he'd always heard from women in her situation in the past, "it's not all the time, and it's just when things go bad and he's under a lot of strain. Ted has a bad temper."

"Warren wanted to rescue you," Bones said, the slightly saddened expression on her face saying everything Booth needed to know about her own thoughts on Lucy's explanation.

"Oh my God..." Lucy said, her already-fragile control slipping as her voice began to break.

"He probably just wanted to intimidate your husband, stop him from attacking you," Booth added; he didn't want her to go away with an incorrect impression of the man who'd sacrificed himself in an effort to save her.

"Warren stabbed your husband in the arm with a bevel knife," Bones added.

"Ted took the knife away from Warren," Booth continued.

"It wouldn't have been hard," Brennan commented, evidently trying to find the right words for what she was about to say. "The boy was ill."

"After that," Booth said, deciding there was no point dragging this conversation out for longer than it already had been, "it's like you said; your husband has a bad temper."

As Lucy began to cry, Booth wondered if Warren would have considered this development worth his sacrifice.

A terminally ill boy dies, an abusive man got sent to prison, his wife was spared the abuse she would have been forced to experience until things possibly went too far one day in the future if things had gone too far...

Her future was uncertain, but that was the point; it was _her _future, without any worries about what her husband might do to her.

Given Warren's own limited opportunities for any kind of future due to his illness, Booth thought that he would have considered it a fair trade-off for his actions.


	14. The Woman in the Garden

Disclaimer: I own neither Angel or anything associated with him, and "Bones" is equally out of my reach control-wise

Feedback: Appreciated

Angel of the Bones

"Why did they call in the FBI to little Salvador?" Bones asked as Booth parked his SUV- he'd always prefer his old cars from Los Angeles for the style, but he couldn't deny that the SUV had excellent style and could take a fair amount of damage more than his old sets of wheels- near the red car where policemen were already arresting the driver.

"Well, you know," he said, responding to Bones's question as they both got out of the SUV, "the car's got Virginia plates, across state line and then there's a suspected gang member and then there's Rico to deal with... Look, Bones, do you really want to know?"

"No," Bones responded as they stepped under the yellow tape. "I was just using it as an excuse to make conversation and re-establish our connection."

"What?" Booth asked, looking over at her in confusion; maybe he was more used to 'hearing' Cordelia and Doyle's words after their impact on his social interaction, but he'd never heard someone describe that kind of social development that _clinically_...

"Well, I read a book about improving work relationships," Bones replied. "It's not fair to expect you to tell me everything."

"I appreciate the effort, Bones", Booth responded, trying to stop himself smiling slightly at the image of Bones _reading _about how to interact with people; even at his worst days back when he'd been Angel, he'd trying to 'learn by doing' rather than taking advice from others (What his old teammates had 'offered' in their time together didn't entirely count; they'd done it more out of slight exasperation rather than a deliberate decision to help him)...

"It's like they recreated their country here," Bones said, looking around at the gathering of basic-looking shops surrounding the street, "right down to being terrified of the police."

"You know," Booth noted, "a lot of these people are undocumented; they get nervous around law enforcement."

As he walked up to the police gathered around the car, he pushed thoughts of how that could have applied to him in the past- it wasn't like he could have legally applied for any papers back in those old days when he'd been technically dead- and focused on the current issue. "What do we got?"

"Ran the stop sign," one of the officers present responded. "I pulled him over, he tried to run."

A cursory glance of the prisoner was all Booth needed to confirm his initial assessment.

"Whoa," he said, pulling down the collar of the man's jacket to expose the tattoo on the back of his neck; two 'Ms' on either side of a crucifix. "Look at this Mara Muerte tattoo; it's one of the most feared gangs in the territory. No wonder he was chauferring a dead body around, huh?"

Walking around the other man, he slightly grabbed the man's chin to glare in his face. "Couldn't you just join the boy's club, pal?"

"And I'm here because...?" Bones asked, as she stepped up to stand next to Booth, prompting him to release his grip on the other man's chin; that approach wasn't getting him anywhere.

"Police inspection of the vehicle, I found this," the original officer explained, leading them to the trunk of the car, revealing a blackened, decayed body wrapped in some kind of sack that Bones began to examine almost immediately after pulling on her gloves.

"Vertical brow ridge suggests female," she said said (How she could do this kind of thing Booth had no idea, but he _definitely _admired it), "recently dug up, looks like..."

She stood back up and indicated the prisoner. "Could you hold his hands up, please? We should analyse the dirt on his hands and compare it to the dirt on the shovel and on the remains."

"Where was she buried?" Booth asked, turning his attention to the immediate matter as he addressed the other man, the prisoner's hands still cuffed behind his back as Bones looked them over. When he met with no response, Bones said what he presumed was the same question in Spanish, followed by another question, but neither query met with any kind of response.

"Great," Booth groaned. "Now he's ignoring us in two languages..."

"Where is the nearest cemetery?" Bones asked, turning to the officer.

"The closest one I know about is Holy Rude, but that's a good ten miles from here," the officer replied apologetically.

Bones turned to try and address the crowd around them, but the only response to her questions was for the crowd to disperse without any sign that they were bothered about the anthropologist's efforts to find answers.

"Maybe your Spanish is a little rusty?" Booth suggested, in an attempt to lighten the mood that even he knew was weak.

"They come from a place where getting involved gets you killed-" Bones began, only for further conversation to be halted when somebody in a nearby car stuck a gun out of the window and began firing. Moving instinctively, Booth grabbed Bones and hurried her along towards the rear end of the car, bullets striking the car just behind them as he drew his own gun to try and fight back...

Then his eyes fell on the prisoner, running down the street with his hands in front of him- he must have worked them under his body while the officers were distracted by the gunshots-, and he had more immediate matters to deal with (Particularly after he'd confirmed that Bones hadn't been harmed by the shooting either).

"Hey!" he yelled, running after the handcuffed man as he ran down a nearby alley. "Hey!"

As the man turned down another, smaller alley to the right of the first one, Booth mentally cursed the loss of his vampire speed; the ability to go out in the sunlight was an obvious benefit of being human, but he had to go to so much effort to maintain even a fraction of the physical strength that had once been his natural 'right', he was sometimes amazed he didn't have more accidents (A decade or so of adjustment wasn't always enough to counter over two centuries' knowledge of what he could do)...

"Don't make me shoot you!" he yelled as the running man moved to climb over a fence in his path, hauling himself up the wire-frame barrier. For a moment, as Booth grabbed the other man by the ankle, he thought that he had a shot at keeping a hold of his prisoner, but then the man's shoe came off in his hand. Momentarily off-balance at the loss of resistance from the other man, Booth staggered back, regaining his balance just in time to see the handcuffed man land with a hard impact on the hood of a car on the other side before rolling off and resuming his original pace.

_Damnit! _Booth fumed, staring in exasperation at the rapidly-fading sight of his suspect retreating down the street.

If he'd still been Angel- and the weather was right, obviously-, he'd have been over the fence and after that guy with everything he had; as it was, Seeley Booth had lost too much time and distance to keep up with the guy before he got somewhere that would make it practically impossible to track his route...

* * *

As he sat in the interrogation opposite the gang lord of one of the main street gangs in the area, Booth wondered how it was that humans could make things almost more complicated gang-wise then vampires; at least with vampires power was normally given to the oldest vamp present- that time the Anointed One took over the Order of Aurelius in Sunnydale after the Master's death being the sole exception-, but there were so many ways that an ambitiously-minded human could take control in a gang that he'd lost track of them ages ago...

"Miguel Villeda, warlord of the Venganza Rojas street gang," he said, trying to sound more impressed than he was (Even when he was only human now, it took a lot to intimidate someone who'd been face-to-face with the likes of Master, Dracula, and the Beast). "According to this, you are... one fierce, fierce guy."

"Well," Villeda replied, a smug expression on his face, "it didn't stop your guys from picking me up."

"They tell you why?" Booth countered.

"Someone took a shot at some, um, Mara Muertes Puma-" Villeda replied dismissively.

"Not a shot," Booth interjected grimly "A couple of dozen shots, a drive by. Hardly anyone is stupid enough to shoot at those guys anymore; your name came up."

"It wasn't my people," Villeda replied dismissively. "So are you going to charge me with something or let me go?"

"Extortion, drugs, assault, attempted murder?" Booth countered, flipping briefly through the file in front of him before his attention turned back to the other man in front of him. "I could hold you for a while if you want to play that game."

Gang warfare was one of those areas where he definitely missed the vampire way of doing things; generally, unless the other vampire was _significantly _more powerful than you were, any vampire was perfectly within their rights to kill the other guy and just take over without any questions, but dealing with human gangs had several more complicated 'rules' that he had to keep in mind no matter how much some of them might deserve to die...

"What's your problem, man?" Villeda asked dismissively.

"What's my problem?" Booth repeated, leaning over the table to glare more directly at Villeda. "My problem is that somebody shot at me- shot at me _and _my partner-, plus, you know, a bad guy got away, so I'm a little cranky about the whole thing."

"Hmm," Villeda said, leaning back over the table in response. "Mira cavacho. I don't really scare that way; you know, the whole 'in your face staring' thing."

That was one part of his old life as Angelus where Booth was never sure if he should be grateful for its absence or not; the fact that he could no longer 'intimidate' people into giving him what he wanted to know was inconvenient at times, but at least it gave him the comfort of knowing that he wasn't his demon any more...

"Give me a chance, man," he said, concealing his own internal reflection with a slight smirk. "I'm just getting started."

"Mmm," Villeda responded non-committedly. "So, somebody shot at you, huh?"

"That's right," Booth replied.

"Think about it," Villeda countered, not even giving Booth a hint of a smile or frown that would provide some indication how he felt about the current topic. "When was the last time when you heard of a drive by where no one got hit?"

"Innocent bystanders, mostly," Booth retorted grimly. "It's not like you always hit what you aim at."

"Think," Villeda said, pointing to his forehead, "just for a couple of seconds, about _why _the guy never got hit."

Booth was almost ashamed that he didn't realise what Villeda had pointed out to him on his own; how often had he attempted a similar scam to get out of trouble back when he was Angel and dealing with people who didn't know he was a vampire?

"Ah, yeah, you see," Villeda said, smiling broadly at him in a condescending manner that Booth wished he could take off the guy's face without getting done for 'police brutality' (He might not like to use his memories of inflicting pain, but that didn't mean they weren't tempting at times). "You got it now?"

"You're saying that Mara Muerte did a drive-by on their own guy?" Booth asked; he got where this was going, but he wanted to be sure he didn't miss something...

"A drive-by happens, yeah, and you all hit the deck," Villeda said, tapping his fingers mockingly on the table. "And the gang-banger makes a run for it."

It certainly fit the facts he had available to him so far, Booth had to admit; nobody got hurt because nobody was _meant _to get hurt, and the entire thing had just been set up to give the gang member a chance to get out...

* * *

"I called shotgun," Hodgins protested as he sat in the back of the SUV, staring in frustration at Booth as he and Bones sat in the front of the car. "What does it mean to a society when the niceties are no longer observed?"

"OK, look, we've got two bodies, alright; one unaccounted for," Booth said, deliberately ignoring Hodgins's protests (The man could complain more than Xander Harris at his worst at times). "We've been shot at, and now we know there is a gang member walking around a US senator's place. Any theories?"

He almost couldn't believe it when both Bones and Hodgins shook their heads; how could two of the smartest people he'd ever met have _this _little interest in the world outside their labs and experiments?

"Oh, c'mon, guys," he said, trying to prompt more thought out of them. "Let's think of it as a puzzle; there's a missing piece."

"I like puzzles," Bones said (Booth sometimes wondered if she listened to _anything _he said and just picked out the more random words to respond to in order to get on his nerves). "I find them relaxing; I just finished the anatomy lesson by Rembrandt."

"You're kidding, right?" Booth asked, looking over at her slightly incredulously; reading something like that reminded him of some of the times Wesley had done translations because he hadn't had anything else to do...

"What do you find relaxing?" Bones asked, looking curiously at him.

"I... restore vintage cars," Booth replied, going for the hobby that seemed most 'Booth-like' based on the image he tried to create; he did enjoy the chance to work on old cars just for the sake of it, rather than having to work on his old cars to repair damage they'd sustained when he had to use them as an improvised weapon of some sort against his current demonic opponent, but he still enjoyed the occasional sketch when he had the chance...

"I know what I find relaxing," Hodgins put in, leaning forward with a smile.

"Everybody finds what you find relaxing, relaxing," Booth pointed out.

"Senator Corman is a big supporter of business leaders in Central America," Hodgins continued (Booth wondered if he'd registered the insult and was ignoring it or was clarifying that the current topic was actually what he'd been thinking about). "That means supporting repressive regimes that use death squads to silence any opposition from the working people which are the same people who flee to the states."

"OK, that's great," Booth said, trying to get the group off that particular topic; the last thing he wanted was getting dragged into another of Hodgins' political rants. "That's good. OK, let's focus; that's good, 'cause now we have a link between Corman and the Salvadorians."

"Now you think the senator killed two people?" Bones asked uncertainly.

"Nah," Booth replied, waving a dismissive hand. "I just think we got another piece of the puzzle, that's all."

Whether it would be a relevant piece was another matter, but every little helped; sometimes you didn't know what fit into the pattern until you saw what the end result had turned out to be.

* * *

"Jose's sister hated him," Ortez said as he sat on the opposite of the table from Booth and Bones, his more cultured appearance nevertheless disguising the same fundamental nature as Villeda had displayed earlier; a casual arrogant certainty that he was going to come through this mess all right simply because he was the one in it.

"Hated him, why?" Booth asked.

"She didn't approve of his associations," Ortez said simply.

"You mean his associations, like the leader of one of the most murderous street gangs in the country?" Bones asked (Booth sometimes wondered if that was why he liked working with her; she could say the kind of things that he _wanted _to say but couldn't due to his new responsibilities as an FBI agent).

"Look," Booth said, trying to stick to his responsibilities as an agent to ask the relevant questions, "if she hated Jose so much, why was he moving her body?"

"When the burial site was threatened, he wanted to move it to a better place, and his father," Ortez said. "Real family guy, you know."

Comments like that from a man like this just made Booth sick; he doubted this bastard _remotely _understood the _real _concept of family beyond what was necessary for him to function in his 'profession' and keep the rest of his gang out of jail...

"I'm not the leader of the whole gang," Ortez added, leaning forward to address Bones with a mockingly solemn expression. "Just the DC chapter."

"You shot at us so Jose could have a chance to get away," Booth said, refusing to rise to the implied insult Ortez had tried to score by talking with Brennan like that in front of him.

"The Mara Muerte takes care of its own," Ortez stated. "Even a throwaway like Jose."

"Can I ask you something?" Bones cut in.

"Go ahead," Ortez said

"Jose's all beaten up, so he won't tell us anything," she said, leaning over the table, "but you, you don't even ask for a lawyer but you hardly stop talking."

"Bones," Booth said, hoping that the warning tone would encourage her to stop before she went too far.

"Hey, I'm the boss, lady, OK?" Ortez said. "Jose's a sobrenato. What is also true is the man is not as smart as me."

"You intimidate him into silence, but you can walk in here to the FBI, say whatever you want, and walk away like you own the place," Bones said grimly

"That's right," Ortez smiled, with the same nonchalant arrogance that uncomfortably reminded Booth of his long-deceased grandsire; the casual confidence that he could do and say whatever he wanted because he possessed so much power and such a dangerous reputation that he was virtually untouchable.

"Look," he said, trying to take his mind off that twisted face he'd first seen so many long years ago, as he stood up, trying to regain some kind of control of the current mess, "all I need to know is who would have the guts to kill his sister?"

"Who cares, man?" Ortez said dismissively.

"C'mon, Ortez," Booth countered. "The sister of the Mara Muerte? It's the most feared gang in the city."

"She wasn't my sister, man," Ortez replied (One area where the Master had differed from this guy; for all that he'd been a vampire, he'd at least shown concern for _some _of his minions, even if he'd disposed of the Three fairly easily after their first failure to bring him Buffy from what Darla had told him during their brief reunion in Sunnydale while she was trying to win him back).

"It had to be somebody else in the gang, somebody more important than Jose," Bones suggested.

"You know what, lady?" Ortez said, smiling and pointing briefly at his head. "You think too much. Maybe you need a man like me, get your mind off of things, you know what I'm saying? I can be your thorns of adorn."

Booth wasn't sure if it was the words or the brief 'air-kiss' that provoked his partner, but it was enough to make Bones walk out of the room in a rage (Much to his relief; if she'd stayed here much longer, Ortez may have done something that would make Booth react in a manner he _knew _he'd regret later...).

"Look," Ortez said, as though the previous few seconds hadn't happened, "I don't know who killed Jose's sister, but I'll tell you what; because I like you so much, I find out who did it, I'll kill them."

Booth wasn't sure if it was the subsequent laugh or the fact that he had to let the guy out of the building after this interview that made him feel in a particularly bad mood at this point, but whichever it was, he spent the next few moments sitting silently in the interrogation room, fuming inwardly at the way the interview had gone before he felt like he had regained enough control to get to his feet and leave the room.

* * *

As he sat in the car opposite the alley, Booth wondered why he was doing this; he could have gone with the offer to use FBI resources to make Ortez call off the hit on Bones, rather than deciding to take care of it himself.

He knew that he could do it, of course, but the part of himself that he'd need to draw on in order to make a convincing impression on a guy like Ortez was a far darker part than he was usually comfortable using for _any _situation, particularly when it was so much closer to the surface of who _he _was these days.

As much as he acknowledged it hadn't been the case, back when he'd been Angel it had been easier to 'pass the buck' for some of his darker moments to the part of Angelus that had always been in the back of his mind; moments like this just forced him to recognise that Angelus had been a deeper part of him in a manner that he didn't entirely feel comfortable with...

Then he saw Ortez walking down the street and into a side alley, and all thought vanished; as he left his car, ran up to the other man, turned him around, and slammed him against the wall of a nearby door, it was all about action.

"What are you, crazy?" Ortez asked, glaring back at him. "This is my neighbourhood-!"

"You put a hit out on my partner?" Booth countered.

"She's not FBI, so-" Ortez began, before Booth cut him off with a rapid punch to the face, the fist quickly relocating itself to grip Ortez by the throat as he pulled out his gun with his other hand, placing it under the gang leader's chin.

"I never said anything about FBI," he said, glaring coldly at Ortez. "She's my partner, and if anything happens to her, I will find you and I will kill you; I won't think twice."

The last part might have been an exaggeration, but it wasn't much of one; even when he'd been Angel, he'd always been willing to kill humans if he was absolutely _certain _he had to do it...

"Come here," he said, noting Ortez's eyes flicking around him in an apparent search for an escape, his now-cocked gun between Ortez's lips, "look at my eyes; look at my _face_. If anything happens to her, I will kill you. This is between you and me. What nobody sees, nobody knows. You've got nothing to prove; you understand?"

The lack of response prompted him to slightly shove his gun further into his opponent's mouth. "You _understand_?"

Ortez's response was somewhat hard to make out, but the general attitude of confirmation was enough for him.

"Yeah, I thought so," Booth said, his old nonchalance settling in with the threat removed. "Now, if you don't mind, I'll leave first, 'cause I've got somewhere I have to be."

With that, he removed his gun from Ortez's mouth, uncocked it, turned around, and walked away, pausing only briefly to hold the gun against the centre of the gang leader's forehead just to make sure he got the point.

It might not be the _best _way to make the other guy understand what he had come to say, but with people like Ortez, it was the only language they truly understood.


	15. The Man on the Fairway

Disclaimer: I own neither Angel or anything associated with him, and "Bones" is equally out of my reach control-wise

Feedback: Appreciated

Angel of the Bones

As he studied the bone fragment that Bones was holding up in front of herself, the other two fragments lying on the lighted table beside them, Booth had to wonder what it said about him that he was practically unable to get away from long-dead bodies; either he was fighting them or he was helping people work out how they'd died,

"You got it, or do you want me to explain again?" she asked, a teasing smile on her face.

"No, I got it, OK," Booth said (He almost missed Wesley and Fred at times like this; the squints always seemed to enjoy talking 'down' to him to varying degrees, but at least they'd treated him as more of an equal even if he hadn't understood some of what they were talking about). "The plane goes down, Kablooey, there's an extra body on board which you really don't care about because you're more interested in these bone-" he tried not to be offended when Bones slapped his hand away as he pointed at one of the items in question "-fragments that you found on the ground."

"Exactly," Bones replied, as she placed the fragment she'd been holding up earlier back on the table.

"Is this all you got?" he asked, studying the objects in slight surprise

"So far, a piece of skull, a chunk of vertebrae, part of a femur," Bones replied.

"Not much to go on," Booth noted with a slight smile; he was reminded of Fred or Willow, back when they'd had some sudden revelation without realising they were missing something to make it fit.

"These fragments come from a person who was hacked-" Bones informed him with an almost disturbing smile.

"Hacked to little bits," Booth commented, his mind grimly flashing back to some of the times he'd been forced to resort to those kind of methods to eliminate the demons he'd been fighting.

"No, medium-sized bits," Bones corrected, placing particular emphasis on her words as she studied him. "I'm not sure how it turned into little bits yet."

"OK, and I'm here, why?" Booth asked, rolling his eyes in confusion; he appreciated the effort, but as a federal employee his time wasn't exactly his own any more...

"Dismemberment, little bits; it's a murder," Bones clarified.

"Well, FBI doesn't have jurisdiction at a golf course," Booth pointed out (It was one of the main disadvantages of being an official agent; at least as Angel he had relative freedom to go where he wanted when following up a lead, even if that was mainly because nobody else _wanted _to tackle the kind of stuff he dealt with...).

"Well, who does?" Bones asked.

"I don't know; try the PGA," Booth said dismissively, unable to stop a sudden smile as Bones looked awkwardly down at the table.

"Ah-ha," he said, grinning at her. "You know, you've done a couple of cases without me, and you miss me."

"Zack misses you, not me," Bones corrected him.

"Zack and I don't even talk," Booth responded (He didn't _hate _the guy- he reminded him slightly of a male, equally-antisocial-but-slightly-saner version of Fred in her early days with the group too much for Booth to hate him-, but he was still a bit difficult to talk to at times).

"He seems to think it's a male bonding ritual," Bones clarified, looking slightly critically at him.

"Maybe he's right?" he interjected before she could go any further.

"No he's not," Bones said.

"Could be," he countered, trying to defend himself

"You told him that so you wouldn't have to talk to him," Bones retorted.

"Well, it was nicer than shooting him," Booth retaliated; it was an exaggeration of how he'd react, of course, but it should hopefully get his point across anyway.

"Mmm," Bones said, before her attention returned to the bones in front of her. "Goodman has ordered me to investigate the other extra body."

"Well, then, you better get on that," Booth said. "Next time you, you know, miss me, pick up the phone, call me; we'll do lunch or something."

"I do not miss you!" Bones retorted automatically.

"Yeah, you miss me, c'mon," Booth said, the earlier grin back on his face.

"I do not miss you!" Bones repeated.

"Say it," Booth said again.

He knew that he was overdoing this, but it had been so long since someone _genuinely _missed him he felt that he was entitled to enjoy the moment; he'd had friends back in the army and a few close colleagues in the Bureau, but any meeting with his army buddies was complicated by the fact that at least half his memories of most of them weren't entirely real, whereas he'd experienced everything the squints remembered them experiencing for _real_...

"Doctor Brennan, Agent Booth," a voice said, prompting the two to look around and see a security guard standing at the door. "You have a visitor."

Even as Bones walked out of the lab, Booth couldn't stop the slight smile at even the implication that she'd missed him; after so long living a life where most of his friendships were based on fake memories, it was nice to know that he could bond with people based on _real _memories as well.

* * *

As he sat in Wong Fu's, looking at Jesse Kane as he sat opposite them, Booth wondered if it was slightly hypocritical to be judging this guy just because he wasn't a professional investigator; he'd never had an official licence back when he'd run his investigations as Angel, and it hadn't slowed _him _down...

Then again, he had always operated in an area where there _was _no official training available- Riley's paramilitary demon-hunting organisation aside, the governments were still generally unwilling to acknowledge the existence of demons, and those guys tended to operate on a principle of hunting for larger 'groups' while he'd focused on more dangerous individual demons-; the fact that this guy was doing something that _could _be investigated by professionally-trained individuals made a bit of a difference.

"My expertise in missing person's investigations derives from one thing," Kane explained, passing a newspaper article to Bones. "My search for my father. He went missing five years ago during a trip to his cottage in Virginia Beach."

"What makes you think these bone fragments come from your father?" Bones asked, barely pausing as Booth took the offered article to study it himself.

"Alright," Booth said, indicating the article with his knife, "you know, there is a question of National security here that is in my jurisdiction; he's not supposed to know about the Chinese."

"My investigations lead me to conclude that my father was murdered in the area and his body disposed," Kane continued, as though he'd never been interrupted.

"What did the police say?" Bones asked.

"They gave up four years ago," Kane clarified.

"Because there was no evidence of foul play," Booth said, handing the newspaper article back to the other man before he turned his attention back to his food.

"The investigation was bungled," Kane retorted, apparently unconcerned about the fact that he was right in front of a representative of the people he was accusing of incompetence. "The city police didn't have the manpower, the state troopers said it was a federal matter, and you guys suggested a private investigator."

"It was not _bungled_, OK, because there was no evidence of foul play" Booth countered, looking over at Bones (Kane probably wouldn't listen to him any more than he'd listened to people earlier, but he could at least make sure Bones got the point he was trying to make). "It's a common story, OK? A guy goes in for a pack of cigarettes and ends up renting out snorkeling gear in Guam."

A part of him knew that there _could _be other explanations, but given that most of those involved supernatural elements that he didn't exactly feel it was his place to reveal at this time- particularly given his lack of evidence to support any claim he might make and no idea what might have been in the area at this time-, there was no point in mentioning that possibility right now.

"He doesn't know what it's like to lose a parent," Kane said, his gaze fixed on Bones as though Booth had never spoken. "You do."

Booth almost couldn't believe he'd just heard that.

Spike had been tactless, but that was based out of a desire to cause pain, and even Bones's main 'errors' were just inspired by simple social ignorance rather than anything else; the fact that this guy would bring up something so deeply personal to Bones just to make a point (And not even an accurate one at that; just because he never got along with his parents in _either _of his childhood memories, and just because he knew what had happened to them, didn't mean their loss didn't affect him...).

"You want to back down a jot there, buddy?" he said, putting down his cutlery to point a critical finger at the other man.

"How do you know about that?" Bones asked, her tone for a moment reminding him of the same blunt scientist he'd met almost a year ago.

"No offence, Doctor Brennan, but you're a writer, you're a well-known scientist, it's out there," Kane clarified. "Plus, you're one of us."

"One of us?" Bones repeated.

"People whose loved ones have simply vanished," Kane clarified. "In your case, both parents."

"OK, how do you know about the Chinese?" Booth asked, promptly sticking his hand in front of Bones's face when Kane continued to stare at him (He squashed down the part of himself that told him that had been motivated by jealousy; he'd accomplished his goal of drawing attention back to himself, even if Bones moved his hand away from her face pretty quickly). "Do _not_ look at Doctor Brennan, okay? Whether you like it or not, this is an issue between you and the FBI."

"If body parts are found in roughly the area where my father disappeared, I'm going to know about it," Kane clarified, looking at Booth as though he was talking about something that would automatically be available to anyone. "Radio chatter, the internet, the local law enforcement, that's all I'm prepared to tell you."

With that, he turned back to Bones, dismissing with Booth with frustrating ease once again. "Do you mind if I ask you how many bone fragments you found?"

"Yes, I do," Bones replied. "I don't discuss ongoing investigations."

"She doesn't discuss ongoing investigations," Booth repeated, as he began to pour some sauce over his food.

"Fair enough, Doctor Brennan," Kane said, before he turned to place his hand on a box of files on the technically-empty chair opposite Bones. "These are my notes from the last five years, every lead, every clue; every person I have ever talked with is here."

"And why would Doctor Brennan care about that?" Booth asked, before he began to chew on the next bit of his stake.

"Because it will at least give her a candidate to eliminate," Kane pointed out, with a frustratingly condescending smile on his face as he pointed that out (Had he dealt with this much crap when people thought he was a private detective, or had things just been easier than because he started out with the impression that he was going to believe them from the beginning?).

"He's got a point," Bones said, much to Booth's slight frustration; he hated it when people stuck their nose into this kind of thing and actually had a _valid _point.

"My father's medical records, pictures, last known whereabouts, even a connection to the golf course," Kane continued, picking up a photograph of what Booth assumed was a younger Kane and his father. "Also my phone number, but don't worry; if I don't hear from you, you'll hear from me."

With that, he stood up and walked out of the restaurant, leaving Booth to stare silently at his partner.

"Wow," Booth said, whistling in exasperation as he glanced at the files their 'guest' had left behind. "Pushy."

"Well," Bones said, as she leaned on the table to address him, "maybe he discovered that being pushy is how you get cops to pay attention."

"What are you hawking at me for?" Booth asked, trying to ignore the intensity of her stare as she looked at him; he _really _hated it when people lumped him in with the rest of a group just because some people made mistakes.

"The Chinese, the plane crash, that's geo-politics," Bones said. "This is murder. Will you help?"

"Well, you know," Booth said after a moment's contemplation, "I guess if you're uh, really asking me, I guess I could uh you know fudge it with my boss to make it look like it was attached to the Chinese plane crash thing."

It wasn't a promise, but the smile Bones gave him in response was encouraging on its own; it was always nice to know that people trusted him with this kind of thing.

* * *

"Ray Sparks was in jail when your father disappeared," Booth said as he stood in his office, Kane sitting in front of him while Bones sat in the opposite chair, trying not to think about the way that Bones was even subconsciously trying to 'relate' to this guy.

He was trying to get Bones's reasons for spending so much time on Kane's case- her 'thing' about helping people find the answers she didn't have herself-, but the fact remained that this guy had just barged into their case with absolutely nothing but a guess about who the victim was and expected them to crack it.

"He might have acted as a go-between, put Karen in touch with the hit man," Kane countered, apparently unconcerned about the relatively minimal information suggesting that the theory he'd just proposed was possible.

"One of the things that you lecture about," Booth responded, glaring pointedly at him, "is that the simplest theory usually turns out to be true."

"Usually, not always," Kane said in response (Booth couldn't believe this guy could so easily dismiss everything he'd argued about for ages when it didn't fit his views; was it so hard to _see _how obsessive he was getting about this?).

"What's the simplest theory in this case?" Bones asked, looking back at him inquiringly.

"Disowned son realises that his father may remarry, loses his inheritance..." Booth began, his eyes flicking to Kane as he spoke.

"Booth, are you accusing Jesse of murdering his own father for money?" Bones asked (If she reacted that way to somebody _killing _someone in their family, he wondered how she'd react to learning about some of the stuff he'd seen back as Angel; Magnus Bryce trying to sacrifice Virginia to that demon was _definitely _not an encouraging example of familial relationships).

"Did you ever hear the Menendez brothers?" Booth began

"I came to _you_ about the bone shards saying it might be dad-" Kane pointed out indignantly.

"Hey, look," Booth interjected- after the way the guy had insulted him and the agency he now worked for, he felt that he was entitled to say his piece on this topic-, "your father is declared dead, you get your inheritance before Karen Anderson spends it all."

Kane said nothing in response to the accusation, but the slight tension as he folded his arms hinted that something Booth said had made some kind of impact.

"Well," Booth said- he didn't entirely _believe _this theory, but felt it was worth testing Kane's thoughts on the idea anyway-, "you don't seem too upset about the accusation."

"Agent Booth," Kane countered, looking coldly back at him, "for four years I have been making enemies with law enforcement; attacking me is a pretty typical response."

"Booth," Bones asked, leaning over the chair's arm-rest to better address him, "is this one of the times when you just poke and prod to get reactions?"

"Listen, Bones, we have to treat him like a suspect," Booth said, turning away from Kane as he looked back at her. "He is _not_ a member of the team."

He acknowledged that the comment sounded somewhat prejudiced, but he couldn't help it; he worked best when he had a certain number of people available to him that he _knew _he could trust, and he didn't like just letting some guy into that category just because he _might _have some information that could help them in this case (Particularly not when the guy was almost certainly obsessed to an almost unhealthy degree with the subject of his investigative efforts).

"Look," Kane said, relaxing his arms as he looked at Bones, "I'm like you; I need the truth."

The brief gleam of tears in his partner's eyes was more than enough for Booth to know that Kane had just crossed

"I have to get back to the lab," she said, standing up and hurrying out of the office, leaving Booth to glare at Kane.

He didn't trust himself to actually _say _anything at this point after what the guy in front of him had done to his partner, but the stare he was directly at the amateur investigator seemed to be making his point for him.

* * *

As he sat in Wong Fu's that night, the squints chatting away in a side booth while Booth filled in the last few bits of paperwork required, he wondered how he should mark this case down in his personal mental records; he'd uncovered one murder that had gone unsolved and even unreported before he stepped in, but Max Kane's final fate- the reason they'd paid so much attention to that case in particular- was still a mystery...

Then again, as much as he hated to sound insensitive, Kane had just creeped him out a bit; speaking from personal experience after the mess he'd nearly made of his life in his single-minded 'pursuit' of Darla- as well as less direct examples, such as Spike's former relationship with Drusilla or Holtz's attempts to kill him-, dedicating yourself to a single goal based around a single individual just got you nothing but cutting you off from everything that had made you start on that path in the first place.

It was probably too much to hope for that the guy would take this as a hint to cut back on his investigations and stop getting his hopes up, but he had to have hope; if his life had taught him anything, it was that anyone could change if given the chance.

The sound of footsteps prompted him to glance over at the door, but he just turned back to the paperwork when he saw that it was Bones; if she wanted to talk to him or the squints, it was her call, and he wasn't going to pressure her after everything that Kane had been doing over the last few days...

"How did Jesse take it?" he asked, turning to look at her as her footsteps clearly indicated that she was approaching him.

"Like an orphan," Bones replied as she sat down, before she noted that he was still looking at her. "What?"

"That's just- that's a little poetic for you," Booth replied, chuckling slightly at her; it somehow put him in mind of how people would have reacted back in Sunnydale if Willow had suddenly stopped babbling when stressed.

"I didn't mean it that way," Bones replied, prompting Booth to simply smile briefly before he turned around to pick up his drink.

"I want to ask you another favour," Bones added.

"Oh jeeze; _another _favour..." Booth groaned in a deliberately exaggerated manner as he took a sip of his drink.

"I wonder if you wouldn't mind taking a look at this," Bones finished, sliding the file she'd been holding over to him.

"The file on your parents?" Booth asked, noting the name on the top of the file in surprise.

Given how long it had been since she'd even _mentioned _her parents to him, the fact that she was just bringing it up like this...

"Yeah, OK," he said, trying not to show how much the idea trusted him; that she was willing to give him a shot at her greatest personal mystery...

"Do you want to think about?" Bones asked. "It's a pretty big favour."

"You'd do it for me," Booth replied, trying not to think too much about the fact that she'd _never _be in a position to do that to him even as she confirmed his assessment- he knew what had happened to _all _of his parents, and he didn't even _want _to be reminded of what had happened to his 'Liam' parents given Angelus's role in those events-, and instead focusing on how it felt to know that she trusted him this much.

"I'm proud you asked, Temperance," he said, smiling at her, knowing even before he said it that this was a moment to acknowledge the humanity rather than any other part of her; the Bones he'd met originally would _never _have had the nerve to open herself up to someone about something like this...

"Ah, Doctor Brennan," Zack said, the young 'squint' walking up behind them and breaking the moment. "Angela wants to know if we should order anything for you."

"No, I'm not staying," Bones replied with a brief shake of her head. "Thanks, Zack."

"Guess we caught another one, right?" Zack said, turning to look at Booth with an awkward smile that Booth didn't need to see to recognise. "All for one and one for all."

"I'll take a look at this, see what they didn't give you, and I'll get back to you, OK?" Booth asked, looking simply back at Bones as he chewed on a couple of nuts; he didn't want to be rude, but the earlier he discouraged Zack's awkward attempts to bond the better it would be for all concerned parties.

"You're back to ignoring Zack?" Bones said to him in a low voice as Zack returned to his table with a slight smile.

"Alright, look," Booth said, "I know you don't approve, but, you know, it works for us, it worked for him, so..."

"Yeah, I get it," Bones responded, nodding briefly, "and... it's kind of sweet."

"Hey, you know," Booth said, shrugging dismissively, "your people are my people."

"What; I have people?" Bones asked.

Booth didn't respond verbally, but the dawning enlightenment on Bones's face as she took in the meaning of that statement was all he needed to see to know that she understood.

"Hey..." Bones said, smiling slightly at the thought. "I have people."

It was the utter honesty of that smile that won him over at that moment, Booth would reflect later; after everything she'd lost in her life before now, the simple knowledge that she had 'people' was something that she'd never really had before now.

As she walked out of the restaurant, Booth opened the file before him, but he only took a brief glance at the photo of her parents before he found his attention diverted to the other photograph in the file; a fifteen-year-old Temperance Brennan, her head tilted to one side and a finger on her chin as she looked contemplatively at something off-camera, a slight smile on her face as the sun shone down on her...

It was so different from the picture he'd once had of Buffy at that age- that long-ago-lost black-and-white image of the Slayer who'd given him a reason to exist, casually leaning against a wall in a simple white top with a slight smile on her face-, but somehow, the casual attitude she demonstrated in this image made the picture mean more to him than that one had; it was as though he had been given a chance to see Temperance Brennan at a normal moment of the day, rather than just when she was posing for a photograph and trying to look presentable.

There was something very... sweet about the chance to see his partner in such a vulnerable moment, before everything had started to go wrong in her life; it was nice to see a glimpse of the girl she'd been the way he'd managed to see Buffy thanks to Whistler.


	16. Two Bodies in the Lab

Disclaimer: I own neither Angel or anything associated with him, and "Bones" is equally out of my reach control-wise

Feedback: Appreciated

AN: This chapter takes advantage of the fact that someone appeared in this episode who was portrayed by an actor who also played a prominent character in _Angel_, but I won't be making a habit of it; I just thought that it offered greater potential than later cases (Particularly given my plans for a certain plot development in Chapter Five of "The Sister in the Door")

Angel of the Bones

As he walked into the Jeffersonian with Kenton beside him, Booth wondered how long it would be before he felt capable of ignoring the disturbing implications of the appearance of the man who was currently walking alongside him; even as much as he respected Kenton's abilities as an agent, there was always that part of him that felt anxious about working with a guy who looked _that _much like Marcus Hamilton.

Even the knowledge that it was probably just a random fluke of genetics rather than anything else didn't stop Booth remembering how it had felt when Hamilton had so nonchalantly nearly beaten him to death during his last few moments as a vampire before Los Angeles had been sent to Hell; even after the pain he'd experienced when he'd jumped off that building before he realised what had happened to him, there was something about the nearly effortless manner that Hamilton had almost killed him that always left him feeling uncomfortable.

He'd technically taken more damage from the Beast, but at least the Beast had _looked _like it could take him in a fight; Hamilton had seemed like he was more bark than bite in that suit of his, and yet he'd come close to killing him more than once in their fight...

Still, that was in the past, and Hamilton was long since dead; this was the present, and, as Kenton regularly made clear with his chosen attire of leather jackets, he was _not _Hamilton.

As he walked into the Jeffersonian, Booth smiled slightly at the sight of the squints standing around the main table- they might need lives, but there was something kind of nice about seeing people that committed to their jobs-, his interest being piqued as the conversation they were having reached his ears.

"...not a date, it's a meal," Bones was saying.

"With a man?" Hodgins asked, glancing up from the clipboard he was studying.

"Did you meet him on the website I told you about?" Angela asked, just as Bones swiped his passcard over the lab's electronic 'key' system.

"You're dating online?" Booth asked, trying to stop his mind flashing back to what he'd heard about Willow's close call with Moloch- just because he'd been only loosely affiliated with the gang at that time didn't mean he didn't keep tabs on their activities-; he doubted any demons would be trying something like that with Bones.

"Well," Bones replied dismissively as she turned away from the central table to walk towards him, "it's a practical way of objectively examining a potential partner without all the game play."

"That comes later if it works out," Angela added, not even looking in his direction as she held out her hand to Kenton. "Hi, I'm Angela."

"Special Agent Jamie Kenton," Kenton replied with a brief nod. "Hi, Doctor Brennan."

"Hey," Bones responded, the two agents exchanging nods with the forensic anthropologist.

"You two know each other?" Angela asked, looking curiously between them.

"Well, I was at the Bureau when Booth took his coffee cup," Bones clarified (Booth couldn't stop a slight laugh at that comment; Bones always had the most interesting way of remembering people). "Apparently, they're both the world's greatest FBI agents."

"That's right," Booth said; he tried to make up for his comfort about Kenton's appearance by focusing on his positive skills as an agent, but even he acknowledged that the description Bones had just given was an exaggeration. "Kenton is working the Cugeni case; he's one of the original investigators. This is Brennan's brain trust."

"Your victim is over here," Bones said, ignoring his 'brain trust' comment as she led them over to the table

"So," Booth asked, "what if your computer date's a psycho?"

"Only about a billion people date on-line," Angela put in.

"Yeah, I have," Hodgins added (Booth wondered if he should take that as a sign to worry about that; at least with what he'd heard about Willow, 'Malcolm' had _initiated _contact with her rather than Willow looking for someone to date herself).

"You know," he said, leaning against a computer as he looked at Bones with a smile, "whatever happened to seeing someone across a crowded room, eyes meeting, that old black magic gets you in its spell?"

"There's no such thing as magic," Bones said dismissively.

"Oh, there's magic," Booth replied; he'd let her assume that he was talking about the more metaphorical magic rather than the literal stuff he was actually discussing.

"Are you here for a reason?" Bones asked, getting back to the essential point of the current visit like always. "Because Agent Kenton is handling this..."

"We have some remains to look at," Booth clarified.

"I'm already looking at them," Bones responded.

"Nope, no, not the Cugeni case; Kenton will baby-sit him," Booth said, indicating where Kenton was showing Hodgins something on his phone. "These are fresh."

"Well, I was told that our friend in the cement shoes took precedence-" Bones began.

"That was before we found someone tortured and ripped apart by dogs," Booth interjected.

As he took in Bones's reaction to the idea of someone doing that to someone, he ignored the part of himself that wondered if it would turn out to be something else; while some demons _could _cause the kind of damage he'd seen, they were also so uncontrollable that he'd already know if anything like that was active in Washington, so dogs were the more likely candidate...

He _really _needed to stop thinking of demons whenever he faced the more brutal monsters he ran into in this new career; he should have learned from Wolfram & Hart that you didn't need to be demonic to be a monster.

* * *

"Romano didn't give us anything, so I should probably be back at the lab," Bones said as they walked into her apartment (Booth wondered if she was even _capable _of 'turning off' when dealing with a case; even whatever social conversations he had with her tended to focus on case-related matters).

"No, your squints can handle it," he said, trying not to show too much awe at the design of her apartment- white walls mixed in with simple stonework, a couple of pillars, and some comfy-looking chairs; the effect created an interesting blend of old and modern that put him in mind of her approach to work- as he spoke. "You haven't slept in over a day, all right? You need to get some rest; I'll sleep on the couch."

"You think you're staying here with me?" Bones asked, looking uncertainly at him.

"Yeah," Booth said, turning his attention back to the apartment (This wasn't an issue she legitimately _could _argue about, so he wouldn't give her a reason to start one). "Nice place by the way, Bones."

"No, I'm- I'm_ locked_ in here, Booth," Bones protested, ignoring his compliment. "I'll be fine."

"OK, look," Booth said, ignoring Bones's attempts to dismiss him as he took in the surrounding area, "I want you to stay away from your windows too, okay? A sniper has a clear shot from any of these surrounding buildings."

"I could have just stayed at the lab," Bones said, throwing her bag into a nearby chair in resignation. "The security is tight there."

"Then you would have worked, you would have gotten tired, and you would have been more vulnerable when you _did _go out; trust me, this is the best, all right?" Booth said, before he clapped his hands together and turned his attention to less work-related matters. "So, where's the TV?"

"I had one, but it broke," Bones answered, shrugging slightly awkwardly. "I'm... I mostly just read and listen to music."

"So, let's listen to some music, huh?" Booth said, trying to conceal his own satisfaction at this turn of events; he'd gotten into TV more when he became human, but he still enjoyed a chance to kick back with something interesting to listen to at times (One obvious disadvantage of living on the streets was that it left you rather out of touch with popular culture; he hadn't seen any reason to get a TV when Whistler had first come to him, and there'd always been something more immediate for him to do as Angel before he became Booth).

"What do we got, Bones?" he said, as he began to glance over the CD holders near her stereo. "Wow, world music; there's a shock... Tibetan throat singers? Rock on, Bones."

"That's mostly for work, so..." Bones began, as Booth began to browse the other CD holder (The content of that holder was nice, but he'd had enough of Tibet and the like when he went on that spiritual retreat to cope with Buffy's death).

"Kayne West, Captain Power..." he began, before he paused with a slight smile at the next group of CDs. "Look at this, lots of jazz; I'd have thought all that free-form stuff would be a little bit too unpredictable for you."

"No, I love it," Bones replied with a slight smile. "The artist has to live within a set tonal structure and trust his own instincts to find his way out of an infinite maze of musical possibilities, and the great ones do..."

Her voice trailed off as Booth smiled at her.

"What?" she asked.

"Oh, nothing," Booth replied, letting out an awkward laugh at her query; there were definitely some occasions where no amount of lessons would help you react appropriately (Not that actual experience could cover everything either, in his experience). "I just... I just never expected that you would... you know..."

"That I would love music?" Bones finished, smiling at him. "Well, I don't usually get to talk about it, but since you brought it up, I thought..."

"No, hey, I didn't mean to make you feel self-conscious or-" Booth began, before his eyes fell on a particular CD lying in front of her stereo and picked it up. "Whoa, what's this?"

"What is it?" Bones asked, as he quickly positioned himself in between her and the stereo as he slipped the CD in question into the machine.

"Booth," Bones asked, just before the music started to blare from the speakers, the familiar beat of _Hot Blooded _filling the previously near-silent apartment.

"Uh... how did that get there?" Bones asked, as Booth started strumming on an air guitar (One advantage of him not being Angel any more; nobody started panicking when he stopped brooding and started acting 'wild and wacky', as Fred might have said).

"Oh, please," Booth said, smiling at her awkward attempt at rejection, "_everybody _loves Foreigner; _Hot Blooded_? Talk about a guilty pleasure!"

He might have preferred Manilow back in his 'outsider' phase- the years in the twentieth century when he'd felt somewhat more capable of interacting with other human beings than others, despite his own guilt about what he'd done without his soul-, but this song had always appealed to a certain part of him that just liked to let _rip_.

As Bones smiled at him in a slightly incredulous manner, he started singing along to the current song- keeping his voice low to avoid revealing just how bad he was at this kind of thing; no point revealing any flaws he didn't have to-, letting himself go wild in a way that he'd never really been able to do in the past, resisting the urge to just grin when he saw Bones start jumping, dancing and singing along with him; this was a _very _unique bonding opportunity that he wasn't going to pass up...

Then the sound of Bones's phone ringing prompted her to head over to answer the call, leaving Booth to tone down the dancing to limit the possibility that he'd end up distracting Bones as she spoke. For a few moments, he was content to allow himself to focus on the moment and ignore whatever his partner was saying- he was still alert for surrounding threats; that was what mattered-, but his initial high began to die down as he took in some of the pertinent details of Brennan's side of the conversation.

Of all the people who were going to call, it had to be her 'almost-date', didn't it...?

And why did that _bother _him so much?

"Wait," he said, looking awkwardly at her as she ended the call with brief reassurances that she'd get in touch with the other man later, "I hope you didn't think-"

"No," Bones replied.

"No, 'cause I... I wouldn't want to, uh, you know, ruin things for you- ruin anything," Booth replied (God, what was _wrong_ with him; he sounded like Xander Harris at his most moronic!).

"Not a problem," Bones said, shaking her head in a dismissive manner.

"Hey, you got a soda, some juice?" Booth asked after a moment's uncertain silence; it wasn't great, but it was the best way to break the temporary silence that was coming to him right now.

"Yeah, in my fridge," Bones replied, smiling along with him at the ridiculousness of the awkwardness that had suddenly descended on them. "I'll get it-"

"No, no, no," Booth interjected, putting a hand on her shoulder to stop her before he began to walk towards the kitchen area himself. "You know what? I'm... I'm not your guest. You don't have to wait on me; I'll get it."

When he thought back on these events after the situation had been resolved, Booth was never entirely clear on what precisely had been said in those last few moments, apart from a confirmation from Bones that she was fine and a follow-up comment that there were glasses in a nearby cupboard. He was just reaching out to get a glass from the cupboard while opening the fridge when he suddenly felt something ram into him with what felt like the same amount of force that he'd felt when Illyria threw him out of the science department and he'd hit the pavement, followed by the uncomfortable feeling of things becoming incredibly warm...

* * *

As he lay in his hospital bed, his limbs feeling stiff and awkward, Booth had to admit that there were definitely times when he would have preferred to remain a vampire; he might not be burned by sunlight any more, but that didn't mean he couldn't still wish that he'd retained his advanced healing after he was restored to human form by the Powers rather than the Partners. Even with the memory of the aches and pains he'd taken as a vampire helping him develop a comparatively superior ability to deal with pain compared to the average human, that didn't change the fact that it _sucked _when he had to take so long to get back to his fighting peak when he'd spent over two centuries living in a world where all he had to do was wait a few hours and get some blood before he was ready to go back to action...

"Kenton is on his way over," he said, turning his attention back to the present as he looked at Bones where she sat in a chair next to his bed, still occasionally glancing at the file in her lap. "You have to promise me that you are going to stay with him."

"I will," Bones responded.

"Did they gather all the evidence from the explosion?" he asked (Anything to take his mind off his current condition right now _had _to be a good thing).

"Yes," his partner confirmed.

"You're sure?" Booth repeated (It wasn't that he doubted Bones, but she'd never done this kind of thing _totally _without him).

"Yes, Booth," Bones replied, a slightly exasperated edge to her voice. "I was there. They were very thorough and I was very annoying."

_Damnit_... Booth sighed, leaning back in his bed as he stared at the ceiling.

He _hated _being so useless for so long; apart from that mess when Spike had tried to heal Drusilla, it had never taken him more than a day or two to get back into action when he was Angel, and here he was with no choice but to wait for _weeks _to get back to normal...

"I'm sorry, Booth," Bones said. "It should be me lying in that bed."

"I'm fine," Booth said (He wasn't going to let Bones start blaming herself for something she _clearly _couldn't control; he might do that a lot for his crimes as Angelus, but there was no reason for _her _to do the same). "You know, I... I don't even know if... if I have to stay here, you know?"

"You got blown up," Bones countered, looking at him as though he'd said that two plus two was five.

"I've been worse," Booth said simply (He just knew that Bones would never believe how _much _worse he'd been in the past; his condition after that first fight with the Beast was probably the most punishment he'd ever taken, but it wasn't like she'd believe that he got stabbed in the neck and could still be walking about without even a scar).

"You have burns, lacerations, two broken ribs, green stick fracture of the clavicle..." Bones began.

"OK," Booth interrupted- it was bad enough having to heal from that kind of punishment without hearing the full details of what was wrong with him-, "I got blown up."

Trying to take his mind off that issue, Booth reached out for one of the small tubs of pudding in front of him- lack of supernatural healing sucked, but at least his sense of taste was improved-, only to find that he couldn't quite stretch his arm far enough; the damn ribs made it hard to really move his arm that far...

"Can you..." he began, looking awkwardly at Bones (He _hated _it when he was injured). "Can you hand me one of the puddings?"

Without making any additional comments about his physical state, Bones simply reached over and picked up one of the puddings in question while he gradually inched his fingers over to pick up a spoon, getting it into his hands just in time for her to hand him the small tub.

"Oh, man..." he said, sitting back in his bed as he tried to find a more comfortable position. "Thanks, Bones. Look at that."

"You know," Bones said, picking up a file that had been lying beside her and opening it, "on your X-rays, there's a history of multiple fractures on your feet consistent with beating. It's a common method of torture in the Middle East, beating the soles of the feet with pipes or hoses."

"Yeah, I know," Booth said, as he tried to move the spoon to his mouth (He was just grateful that 'resetting' his body to human had also repaired any of the damage he'd sustained as Angel; some of those injuries would _not_ have beeneasy to explain away).

"And there are indications of injuries sustained while you were shielding someone-" Bones continued

"How the Hell can you tell something like that?" Booth interrupted, looking at her in surprise; he recalled Wes mentioning something once about there being a difference between how the body reacted when it hit something and when something hit it that could help determine the difference between being beaten up and having an accident, but how could she know what he was doing at the time he was injured based on _how _he was injured?

"The scarring shows that the rib cage spread in such a way that-" Bones began to explain.

"Yeah, OK," Booth said, his mind quickly going back over his memories of Booth before he found the incident she must have been talking about, grateful that it was at least one of his 'real' memories from that time (The more time he spent with Bones, the more he hated the lies he had to tell her about his past). "A buddy of mine, he lost his weapon and I, uh... I tried... He didn't make it."

Bones simply sat in silence as she looked at him, but the sympathy in her eyes would have been the equivalent of tears in another woman.

"You know," he said, trying to push this sudden bleakness aside as he smiled at her, "you shouldn't be looking at my X-rays."

"Sorry," Bones replied, in a tone that could have been referring to either topic, before a slight knocking drew their attention to the door of the room just as Kenton walked into it.

"Hey," the other agent said.

"Yeah," Booth replied.

"You look like crap," Kenton said, his hands in his pockets as he studied Booth.

"Yeah, well," Booth said, indicating his current food with his spoon, "a little bit more of this pudding and I'll be just fine, you know; just stick with her."

"If you want me to," Kenton confirmed.

"Don't you think I should be consulted?" Bones asked, looking between the two agents.

"No," Booth said, before he looked back at Kenton. "Keep her close."

If he couldn't do the job himself, at least it was an agent whose skills he trusted in his place...

* * *

As Hodgins's small car pulled up outside the warehouse- why a man worth as much as Hodgins drove such a small car Booth just didn't get; even if he didn't want his wealth to be known to the general staff of the institute, he could afford a nicer car than _this_-, Booth could only focus on his own rage at what he'd just deduced about Kenton to distract himself from the pain he was still feeling; all the times he'd put his issues about the guy's appearance aside, and he'd been selling the entire Bureau out to the Ramona crime family...

He couldn't believe that it had taken Hodgins to help him realise what he'd been missing; after the year or so he'd spent running Wolfram & Hart, he had to realise that the trouble with working in a large company was that it was _really _hard to know for sure that you could trust _all _of your co-workers.

Maybe he'd just assumed on some level that he'd had more issues with Kenton looking like Hamilton than he actually did, and pushed down his subconscious observations of Kenton's real behaviour- believing that he was exaggerating the other guy's flaws because his doppelganger had nearly beaten him to death once- to the point that he hadn't realised what was _really _going on with that guy until he came across something that he _couldn't _ignore; the change in methodology of their apparently prime suspect, coupled with the fact that they hadn't found Hollings yet, was just too many twists to be a total coincidence...

As he jumped out of the car, Booth fought the urge to succumb to his injuries as another agent walked over to the car, the rest of the team arming themselves in preparation to enter the warehouse.

"We used thermal imagery to see what activity there was inside the buildings," the agent explained. "We found a crack house, a couple of squatters; just about to move in here next-"

"No, no, no," Booth said, fighting the pain as he tried to focus his thoughts. "He hears noise... you know, he could freak out and kill her; we've got to be careful."

"There's no we, Booth-" the other agent began.

"Yeah, I'm going in with you," he countered; he got Bones into this mess, and he'd be _damned _if he wasn't going to get her out of it.

"You can barely stand-" the other agent tried to protest.

"I _said_ I'm going with you," Booth said (If he could intimidate Connor into not fighting after spending three months at the bottom of the ocean with only a basic amount of blood in his system and face-to-face with a guy who had been raised to hate him for virtually his entire _life_, he could _definitely _intimidate this guy when all he had was a few damaged bones). "Give me my gun."

After a moment's hesitation, the other man pulled the requested item out of his pocket and passed it to Booth, subsequently calling over for a bulletproof vest that Booth quickly established he couldn't put on.

"Alright, you know what?" he said, tossing the vest over to Hodgins (He hated to admit it, but he'd feel strange going into action without a 'squint' after so long working with Bones). "You can come too; just put that on, and you stay back."

"I can do that," Hodgins said as he shrugged the vest on (It wasn't exactly normal strategy, but after the role Hodgins had played in helping him work out the truth about the events of the last few days, Booth felt that he deserved to be 'in at the kill').

As the other agents pulled out their guns and entered the building, Booth and Hodgins followed a team into an area filled with various boxes and a chain-link fence on one side- Booth briefly noted the obvious 'crack heads' on the other side but ignored them; they weren't who he was here for and none of them were vampires, so it wasn't something he could worry about right now-, progressing from that area along a stone-walled corridor, trying to limit the amount of times his ribs made him wince.

"Maybe you shouldn't have had all that pudding," Hodgins said after a particularly long pause, only to be met with a stare from Booth before they continued walking, heading through another door into what looked like an abandoned storeroom. Just as Hodgins and the agent who'd accompanied them was about to leave the room, a brief glance down revealed something Booth immediately recognised as Bones's keyring, Hodgins picking them up for him as he hurried down the corridor as quickly as he could...

Then he glanced through a hole in a nearby wall and saw Kenton standing over Bones, his gun raised in one hand as she stared up at him, hands bound and tied to a hook, a rag in her mouth and terror in her eyes, and pain was replaced by instinct; she was in danger, and he _had _to help her.

A quick shot to the shoulder was all that it took to put Kenton down for the count, but after that, as far as Booth was concerned, he was the agency's problem; _his _only priority right now was Bones.

"Alright," he gasped, removing the gag from the anthropologist's mouth before he turned his attention to the rope around her wrists. "OK, all right; hold on..."

With no other way to free the anthropologist from her bonds, he

[ducks under the hook between her arms to lift her off, falling down onto his rear as Bones hugs him, her wrists still bound]

"It's OK," Booth said, barely aware of what he was saying as he held her in his arms, faint sobs coming from the woman who'd never shown anything less than total control of any situation she was in. "I'm right here... it's over... it's alright..."

He wasn't sure how long he sat there muttering reassuring words before Bones loosened her grip and sat back to look at him, but he didn't even think about relaxing her grip until he heard her laugh; if she was well enough to find anything even remotely worth laughing about, she was past the worst of it.

"How did you get out of the hospital?" she asked, her voice in his ear somehow making the last hour or so of pain worthwhile.

"Hodgins gave me a ride," Booth replied. "Maybe... maybe you could give me a ride back though, huh?"

The nod she gave him in response was the last thing Booth saw before he leant forward, pain once again his dominant companion as the surge of adrenaline wore off; he was _really _going to be sore tomorrow...

But he'd done it.

He might have failed to even gather the _will_ to save Buffy on his own the first time she'd faced a serious threat- looking back he supposed that the problem had been his own inexperience with emotional commitment; it had just been easier to step back when things reached a point where he'd have to get _seriously _emotionally invested in the current situation, particularly when he and Buffy had already concluded that they were never going to be more than what they were-, but now, the first time that Bones had been in real, direct danger- as opposed to someone threatening her and him catching the people intending harm out before they could do anything themselves- from someone they were hunting down...

He'd managed to save her.

* * *

As he lay in the hospital bed once again, Booth briefly wondered if the room upgrade he'd received was because of his injuries or because somebody at the agency was grateful he'd saved such a 'valuable asset', but right now he didn't care; the only thing that _really _mattered right now was the only other person in the room, clad in a black dress with only a small bandage on her head to show any sign of what she'd nearly been throw.

"Kenton is telling us everything," he said, the smile at the thought of this latest breakthrough only slightly marred by what had been lost to get it. "I mean, I guess he figures there's nothing to hide; he's finished anyway."

"Better late than never, huh?" Bones said

"Yeah, I guess," Booth said, pausing for a moment before he decided to continue; lack of communication had cost him too many relationships at times for him to want to do that any more than he had to. "You know, I let you down, Bones. I'm sorry."

"You saved my life," Bones said; clearly, as far as she was concerned, that was all that mattered.

"Yeah but you know, I shouldn't..." Booth began, before he just shook his head in exasperation at himself. "It shouldn't have gone down like that."

"What a pair," Bones said, her phone ringing just as Booth looked over at her with a smile.

"Brennan," she said as she picked up the phone. "Um, I'm leaving right now. David," she explained, in response to Booth's inquiring look as she ended the call. "We're finally having our dinner."

"Well, I figured you didn't dress up for me," Booth said (At least that was a more _sensible _explanation for the dress than a hospital visit with a guy in his shape...).

"You sure you don't... want anything?" Bones asked as she stood up.

"Nah, I'll be fine," Booth said. "I'm just going to, you know, flip around the TV here."

"OK," Bones said. "I'll see you tomorrow."

"Yeah, have a good night," Booth said, smiling back at her (At least they'd pretty much confirmed that David _hadn't _been involved in the shooting the previous night...).

"Thanks," Bones replied, before she turned to walk out of the room, leaving Booth to change the channel from what seemed to be the news- burning buildings; why couldn't people develop more flame-retardant stuff?-, another couple of news channels, and a food advert, before he settled on what looked like a fifties romance.

It wasn't much, but at least it was a lot simpler than the mess he'd been dealing with lately...

The faint sound of footsteps prompted him to look up in time to take in the surprising sight of Bones walking back into the room, less than a minute after she'd left it with an unreadable look on her face.

"I... rescheduled," she said, indicating the bandage on her forehead. "My... my head still hurts."

"Well," Booth replied, deciding to accept her excuse without pushing his luck by asking for more information, "you can watch TV if you'd like."

"Sure," Bones replied, moving around to sit down next to him, her arm stretching out to support her as she leant on his bed-

"Bones, arm," Booth muttered, prompting her to shift the offending appendage as she sat back in the chair. "Thanks."

It was a minor thing in the grand scheme, he knew, but he couldn't help but appreciate it; faced with a choice between a date with a guy she apparently liked- no matter how strange he found the whole 'internet dating' thing- and a night with a guy in hospital, she'd chosen him over 'David'.

They'd not even been really working together for a year yet- their first case didn't count as it had been a casual encounter that had apparently ended without any apparent potential for future development-, and he _already _meant enough to her for her to sacrifice a date for no other purpose than to spend time with him.

It wasn't a major gesture by any stretch of the imagination, but it was... nice... to know he meant that much to her.


	17. The Woman in the Tunnel

Disclaimer: I own neither Angel or anything associated with him, and "Bones" is equally out of my reach control-wise

Feedback: Appreciated

Angel of the Bones

As he was lowered down into the sewer tunnels that were the location of his latest crime scene, the various other law enforcement personnel that had been assembled to assist them waiting below as Zack and Bones hung around alongside him- why was it those kind of comments _always _made him think of Xander or Gunn?-, Booth wondered if this was one of those occasions where his superiors knowing about the past experience he'd gathered as Angel would have given him more leeway than he currently possessed; if they knew that he'd survived in these kind of sewers on his own for so many years, maybe they'd stop trying to give him more people...

Of course, on the other hand, he acknowledged that his experience at keeping _himself _alive in these situations didn't necessarily translate into an ability to keep _other people _alive in the same situation, but he felt that he was allowed to wonder about that kind of thing.

"Where are we?" Bones asked, as she examined the surrounding tunnels with her torch.

"Apparently," Booth replied, trying to take his mind off the discomfort of travelling this way- when he was Angel he could have done this kind of thing with a few jumps-, "this was an access shaft to an underwater aqueduct which has never been activated."

"No," Bones clarified as Zack suddenly came down to join them. "I mean, where are we geographically?"

"Oh, somewhere beneath Wisconsin and Massachusetts Avenue near the National Cathedral," Booth replied, making a mental note to talk with Bones about clarification in future; that kind of comment could be easily misinterpreted.

"How far down?" Zack asked, the torch on his head making him look slightly strange as he almost seemed to be trying to hang close to Booth for reassurance. "We seem very far down."

"Oh, about sixty feet or so," Booth replied nonchalantly.

"Is there any other way?" Zack asked as he glanced upwards.

"It's a giant maze down here, but this was the fastest way to get to the body," Booth clarified (He wasn't exactly comfortable either; he wasn't exactly _afraid _of heights, but incidents like when the Beast and Illyria had kicked him out of windows didn't exactly make him feel comfortable with them).

"I've done plenty of climbing," Bones put in with a regular tone that was probably meant to be reassuring. "These lines have low tolerances that are more than adequate."

"What about shock tolerance?" Zack put in. "The rope jerks, pounds-feet of kinetic energy increases and snap- we fall to our deaths."

"OK," Booth cut in- he hated thinking about stuff like that; if it had hurt when Illyria threw him out of that window when they first met he _really _didn't want to imagine how he'd cope with something like that now that he was alive- after a sudden jerk on the ropes brought them to a momentary halt. "I say we just drop the chatter."

After a few moments of silent descent, he was almost relieved to find himself with the other officers already at the bottom of the shaft, looking at a badly decayed body covered in rats that were already feeding on the rotting flesh.

"Two city workers found it," one of the officers guarding the body explained, indicating the small pile that looked more like the remains of an unfinished dinner party than a human body, lights set up to shine directly on it. "DC public works are under federal jurisdiction, so this is your party."

"Oh," Booth said, trying not to remember his own experience with rats- nearly getting eaten by them while still conscious was _not _a nice experience- as he indicated the shaft above the body. "Any idea what's at the top of that shaft?"

"Utility tunnel for accessing steam pipes," the other man replied.

"May I borrow your gun?" Bones put in, holding a hand out to Booth as she stared at the body.

"Why do you want my gun?" Booth asked; for a moment, a part of him was almost nostalgic for the old days when people could always bring their own weapons during business.

"I'm not going to shoot anyone, I promise," Bones replied.

"It's not a hammer or anything..." Booth muttered; it might be petty, but he just felt so much more vulnerable without a gun now that he didn't have his superhuman strength to fall back on...

"We've been working together for months, Booth," Bones said, looking at him in slight exasperation. "A little trust would be nice."

_Trust_...

That was the tricky thing, really; Booth wasn't ashamed to say that he trusted Bones with his life right now, but he just couldn't trust her with his _secret_...

"Careful," he said as he passed his gun over to her; if he couldn't tell her the truth about himself, he could at least give her the benefit of the doubt in something like this.

"Here," Bones responded, passing her torch to him. "Hold this."

With that, she turned around and fired a few quick shots at the body, each bullet striking one of the rats, before she turned around to hand his gun back to him. "Now they'll eat each other and leave our remains alone."

"You know," Booth said as he put the gun back in its holster, "I do have to file a report with the review board each time I discharge a round from my weapon?" (Another difference from when he was an independent operative, although in all fairness he'd always been more 'hack-and-slash' back when he'd been Angel; even when the situation had called for long-range combat, he'd found it a lot easier to retrieve arrows than keep a record of bullets fired, and Wesley was the team marksman later on anyway).

"Pictures, Zack," Bones said, ignoring Booth's comment as she crouched down beside the body. "The rats scattered the remains, so give me a five-meter radius. The velocity of the fall shattered her body on impact. Tibia's and fibula's broken below the knees, vertebrae compressed and shattered..."

"Her?" Booth interjected, unable to believe that Brennan could establish something like that so quickly.

"Yeah," Bones confirmed as she looked awkwardly back at him. "I just hope that she was dead before the rats got to her."

"Oh God," Booth muttered, trying to take his mind off that particular train of thought. "Any idea how long she's been down here?"

"We should have some answers when Hodgins analyzes the bugs, but rats can strip a body in days," Bones commented.

"Shirt, pants, but no jacket or shoes," Booth muttered, trying to focus on the clothing rather than the flesh in front of him. "No way rats can carry that off..."

"Excuse me!" Bones suddenly called out, standing up as her torch focused on something behind Booth. "Sir? Sir!"

"Hey, what the Hell?" Booth yelled, as Bones suddenly began to run down the path towards what Booth could now see seemed to be a man, the figure in question turning to run away even as she approached him. "Bones! Easy! Bones, what the hell are you doing? Bones!"

As he caught up with her after a few moments' running, he was relieved to see that she was unharmed; he didn't know where the local vamp population was, but if there wasn't _something _unpleasant down here he'd be very surprised...

"You don't just go running after guys into the dark," he said, trying to focus on the more human-based dangers she could have encountered.

"He didn't need any light," Bones noted, once again ignoring Booth's comments that had nothing to do with the current case. "He knew exactly where he was going."

"Yeah, that's creepy," Booth noted (He was just grateful that he'd heard breathing from the other guy while he was running; some vampires might feign breath to blend in better with humans- like he had back when he'd been living in Sunnydale-, but this guy had no reason to do that and so was probably human).

"He lives down here," Bones finished, a reflective tone in her voice that Booth didn't need to think too much about to realise the implications of it.

* * *

"You know," Harold said as he sat opposite Booth in the interrogation room- Booth tried not to think too much about the lawyer alongside his suspect; he got the necessity of the other man's presence, but he had a goal to achieve right now and he was just going to focus on that-, "I find scrap metal. That's all. That's why I go deep."

"You don't have to say anything you don't want to, Mr. Overmeyer," the lawyer said (Booth wasn't sure if he should be touched at the fact that someone would put this much effort into a pro bono case after all his negative experiences with Wolfram & Hart or just annoyed at how difficult the other guy made things).

"You're not here because you scavenge," Booth said, one foot on the chair as he leant on the desk to stare at Harold; he didn't entirely get Harold's authority down in those tunnels, but he wasn't able to use that here. "You know that."

"I-It's too bright in here!" Harold said, giving no indication that he would respond to Booth's statement as his head constantly moved around to take in his surroundings. "Too- too bright in here!"

"I know you have a distinguished military record, Harold," Booth continued; maybe establishing some common ground that he would be expected to possess would help him get through to this guy. "10th Special Forces Group. You know, I was with the Rangers."

"What, so, you... you gonna tell me, uh, "Harold, I know what you been through. I been there, too, you know? I know how you ended up how you ended up"," Harold asked, waving his hands slightly as he squinted at Booth. "You telling me that?"

"Yeah," Booth said, wishing that he could reveal that he'd gone where Harold was at the moment himself at one point even as he knew it wouldn't work; even if it was plausible for Seeley Booth to have spent some time on the streets, he'd hidden both because he didn't feel worthy to interact with other people _and _because he didn't know how to do it in the first place. "I'm telling you that."

"I killed people," Harold said after a moment's pause.

"You saved five of your men," Booth responded, glancing briefly at the file to confirm that he was remembering that correctly.

"By shooting a pregnant woman," Harold responded.

"She had a grenade in her hand," Booth said (As much as he acknowledged Harold's point, this wasn't the time to let him get bogged down in his guilt; he had a crime to solve _now_).

"She had a child... in her arms," Harold replied, the simple pain in that statement telling Booth everything he needed to know about the kind of man he was dealing with. "I shot her and... the grenade went off. She died right away."

Booth simply stood as Harold spoke; the best thing anyone could do for the guy right now was to let him speak.

"That kid..." Harold said, clearly wishing he didn't have to discuss this memory, a faint gleam in the corner of his eyes, "took a while. He kept looking at me, but I...

"You did what a soldier had to do," Booth said, knowing it was weak even as he said it but unable to think of anything else.

"Yeah," Harold said, his voice faster now that he was off that topic, "You know... I was a good soldier- I was a very good soldier-but a pretty bad human being. Pretty bad human being."

"What happened to Marni?" Booth asked.

"I... I hadn't seen her in days, you know?" Harold said after a brief pause. "That's why I went to go take a look. Rats were all over her, man. All over her."

"How did you end up with her things?" Booth continued.

"Oh, you know, I was going to sell them," Harold said nonchalantly."I mean, she would have wanted me to have those."

"So you had nothing to do with her death?" Booth asked, being met with silence as he moved to sit down in the chair.

"I, um... I... I gave her something," Harold said at last. "And that's why she died."

"What did you give her?" Booth asked.

"Mr Overmeyer," the lawyer put in, "I'm advising you not to say anything else."

"You know what?" Harold said- he spoke so quickly that Booth wasn't sure if the lawyer's words had prompted him to clam up or if he'd been thinking about being silent already-, "I think it's best, um...I not talk about this anymore. Not cause any more trouble. I... I got to go."

"No, Harold, you can't, all right?" Booth said, standing up as Harold got out of his own seat. "Not yet. You've got-"

"Too bright in here!" Harold said as he walked towards the door. "I got to go!"

"Harold..." Booth said, moving to stand between Harold and the door, grabbing Harold's weak attempt at a punch- after what he'd gone up against in Hell as a human it would take more than the out-of-practise Harold to catch him off guard- and slamming him chest-first onto the table (He might not like it when he had to resort to violence so quickly while in human form, but he _was _good at his job).

"I never wanted her to die," Harold muttered as Booth leaned over him, holding him in position. "She wouldn't listen! I warned her..."

Booth might be fairly sure that the lawyer wouldn't let him get any more out of Harold in the immediate future, but progress had at least been made; Harold might know more than what he'd said so far, but he was also sure that the guy wasn't the killer.

* * *

As he sat once again in the interrogation room, Booth wondered if he preferred this part of the job to his more straightforward approach to interrogation back when he was Angel; he might sometimes stand less chance of getting answers out of people when doing it this way- people really did tend to talk to you more when you were about to kill them-, but on the other hand it was a lot more civilised than figuring out what body-part to break or what you could threaten them with that they hadn't seen before.

"Harold," he said, as Bones sat in front of the other man, now dressed in an orange prison jumpsuit, holding the small disc in her hand, "was this what you gave Marni Hunter?"

"Yeah," Harold said, looking down at the table as he shrugged slightly. "She liked it."

"Where did you get it?" Booth asked.

"Beyond the perimeter," Harold said, his hands moving forward slightly as though emphasising his statement.

"Harold?" Bones said, putting the object aside as she leant forward slightly. "Harold, you have to trust us. We just want to find who killed Marni. And you can help."

Harold looked at her more sharply at that comment, clearly wondering where she was going with this.

"You killed people," Bones continued (Normally Booth would make a mental note to talk with her about that kind of blunt attitude, but right now he couldn't think of a better way to phrase it that would get through to Harold, so he'd let it go). "Maybe this is your chance to put that right. You said you wish you hadn't given it to her. Why?"

"Did you take it from someone?" Booth asked, leaning over Bones's shoulder to look at Harold.

"The blonde," Harold said at last. "It was hers. And I shouldn't have taken it."

"A blonde killed Marni?" Bones asked (He always seemed to have bad luck with blondes; Darla had made things complicated from the beginning and things with Buffy, Kate and Nina had been tricky from then on).

"Marni went too deep," Harold said. "That's the blonde's territory."

"Does the blonde woman have a name?" Booth asked (For a moment, a part of him wondered if it could be Darla, but that thought stopped before it could even really start; even assuming there was some way to bring Darla back a second time, why would anyone bother?).

"People around me die," Harold said, ignoring the question. "Marni died."

"There's always going to be casualties, Harold," Booth said, pacing slightly behind the chair. "The important thing is to recognize the enemy, and take him out so more people don't get hurt."

"Can you take us down there, Harold?" Bones asked.

"No," Harold replied, shaking his head once again. "It's beyond the perimeter. I took Marni beyond the perimeter. I'm not going to make that same mistake again. Won't make that mistake again."

The content and circumstances might have been different, but in a way, Booth was reminded of his reasons for not mentioning his vampiric past to Bones; he didn't want to take her 'beyond the perimeter' of her rational, scientifically-organised life.

He'd done that to Kate- even if he'd tried to avoid telling her what she really was until that confrontation with Penn made a confession virtually inevitable- and she'd been fired and nearly driven to suicide; he wouldn't make that kind of mistake again.

* * *

As he stood in the room with the Angelator, looking at the 3-D projection that Angela had created to depict the current sewer system, Booth had to admit that he was impressed; his own past as Angel had given him a surprisingly detailed knowledge of the sewers of Los Angeles, but there was still a difference between knowing how to get from A to B and actually drawing up a complete map of everything in between...

"I entered all the modern and historical city plans, including ventilation shafts and tunnels, plus the newer schematics," Angela explained, looking at the group around her as her map enlarged to fill the projection area before her.

"There's also oral accounts of tunnel construction and underground passages," Goodman added, as Angela tapped a few controls and red and yellow tunnels joined the blue layout that had been there earlier.

"Wow..." Booth said, staring at the network before him; walking through something couldn't prepare you for the scale of seeing it laid out visually like this. "All that exists under the city?"

"Yes," Goodman said solemnly. "What we can corroborate."

"Good point," Booth said, reaching over to briefly touch Bones's arm. "Bones, you know, not rushing off to find those guys."

"How accurate is this?" Bones asked, ignoring his comment.

"Blue is modern, near 100% accurate," Angela replied, adjusting the display so that the yellow tunnels were more obvious. "Yellow is historical."

"Estimate 80%," Goodman added (It was one of those rare moments Booth wished that he was still Angel for more than just the enhanced strength; if he'd been Angel, he would have mapped that sewer system out in the first few months after moving to Washington, but without a reason to do so he hadn't actually done anything about it).

"Red represents less exact renderings from stories, memoirs, accounts from city workers..." Angela continued, adjusting the display once again.

"Unfortunately," Goodman noted, "if this treasure exists, it probably exists in one of the red tunnels."

"Well," Booth suggested, "we found that Civil War victim near a cave-in. Maybe the treasure's on the other side?"

"Inductive, reductive or deductive?" Goodman asked.

"Deductive," Bones said simply before Booth could ask for clarification..

"As you wish," Goodman said. "Ms. Montenegro, please remove all tunnels containing power, cable or utility lines."

"And fibre optics," Bones added.

"Yes..." Angela said, studying the controls before she glanced back at Goodman. "Also steam tunnels and transit access?"

"Oh, what about diamond dust?" Booth asked as most of the tunnels vanished from the display. "You said that there was diamond dust in the old tunnels. There was also diamond dust on the Civil War guy..."

His voice trailed off as he noticed the Jeffersonian staff looking at him in a manner that he couldn't quite identify.

"So... what?" he asked, allowing himself to appear slightly hurt to reinforce his point. "I'm not allowed to help now?"

He knew that a murder location would be involved in whatever they discovered at the end, but he was actually kind of enjoying this; it was nice to be able to find something _without _the need to worry about time limits for stopping a ritual or something like that at the same time...

"That's inductive logic," Goodman clarified.

"We agreed on deductive," Bones elaborated.

"I'm sorry," Booth said (He missed the old days when you could just give options without arguing about the reasoning that led to that conclusion). "I'm just, you know, trying to think outside your box."

"Can you indicate where we found Marni Hunter's body and the Civil War victim?" Bones asked, after Angela had removed further tunnels from the schematic before them.

"'Cause, you know," Booth added, trying to get his side of the analysis back on track as the hologram adjusted to display two figures in the listed locations, "if Marni was killed near the treasure and moved, and the Civil War guy was murdered by his accomplice..."

"Mm, gotcha," Angela said briefly.

"Can you connect the two bodies?" Bones asked. As soon as she'd made the suggestion, the diagram was quickly adjusted to illuminate particular tunnels connecting to the area where the bodies were found.

"This one's the closest," Booth put in, indicating an area where two tunnels came close to each other.

"There's no way to get there..." Goodman mused.

"Wait," Booth said, waving his fingers slightly as he studied the diagram, "can you put some more blue lines back in that area?"

Noticing that Bones was staring at him, Booth shrugged. "It's just a guess; throwing it out there. Sue me."

As Angela returned the blue lines to the area, Booth was grateful to see that his hunch had paid off; a few blue tunnels _were _pretty close to that area...

"And connect where Marni Hunter's body was found," Bones said, the illuminated tunnels now connecting up to each other as she watched. "Somewhere along that line is where the treasure is."

"What's that blue line?" Booth asked.

"Storm sewer," Angela explained, as she programmed the sewer in question to glow on the diagram. "H-15B."

"The weapon was a Hanks climbing axe," Zach suddenly said as he walked into the room, prompting Booth to exchange glances with Bones as inspiration struck.

They might still have to _catch _the killers, but that last comment by Zack had given him _just _what he needed to work out the last piece of the puzzle of this particular mess...


	18. The Skull in the Desert

Disclaimer: I own neither Angel or anything associated with him, and "Bones" is equally out of my reach control-wise

Feedback: Appreciated

Angel of the Bones

As he walked up the path leading to the bungalow that Bones had given him directions to the previous night, along with the brief snack he'd grabbed for himself at the airport- even if he hadn't been able to eat it on the way over; he just didn't do well eating in motion, even if it was just on a jolting car seat-, Booth wondered briefly if he should count his ability to help in this kind of case as a positive or a negative thing; his ability to walk in sunlight as Booth might give him more opportunities to help than he'd possessed as Angel, but that didn't mean that heat wasn't still one issue he wished he didn't have to deal with.

God, he'd been on _fire _a few times- when he'd been exposed to the sun didn't count as he'd done that on purpose a few times back when he'd been 'competing' against William in the days before the other vampire had started regularly calling himself Spike- and he didn't think he'd been this hot; what _was _it with the weather round here...

Pushing that thought from his mind as he knocked on the door of the bungalow, Booth allowed himself a brief smile as Angela opened the door for him- Bones appeared to be sleeping on a fold-out couch near the door-; the artist might be going through a rough period right now, but, to her credit, she didn't appear to be noticeably shaken by what had happened to her.

"Hey," he said, smiling at her, trying to seem encouraging despite the grim circumstances that had prompted him to come here.

"Hey," Angela replied, giving him a quick hug that he nevertheless appreciated; they might not be close, but after decades of isolation and fear of succumbing to his basic instincts, there was something comforting about physical contact.

"You know," Booth said as he and Angela parted- although Angela maintained the hug for longer than he'd expected; she must _really _need comfort right now-, "people in the desert don't have actual addresses. What's up with that?"

"Booth?" Bones said, still wrapped up in the covers of her fold-out bed even as her eyes appeared to be smiling at him. "You made it."

"Yeah," he said, as he flung a bag onto Bones's bed out of a lack of anywhere else to put it,

"I'm touring the hottest places in the universe; next stop- there you go-, Hell."

Admittedly, he wasn't _that _interesting in going back to Hell after the incident with Alcathla, but it wasn't like Bones needed to know _that_; she'd just take it as another strange joke...

"I'm not really awake yet," Bones said, clearly annoyed at him as she sat up just enough to toss the bag over the side of the bed before lying back down.

"Last night," Booth said, taking off his sunglasses as Angela sat on the end of the bed, "before I left, I used my FBI powers to force the sheriff to send the skull back to the Jeffersonian. Talked to him this morning. You know, he seems a little resentful."

Despite the memory of the sheriff's resent, a part of Booth had to admit that he'd enjoyed being able to take control of an investigation; after so long with questionable investigative authority as Angel, it was nice to have the authority to take control of things, rather than just try and force his way into something that he knew people couldn't handle without him (He might not be _needed _as Booth, but he could still make a significant impact even if he was only human now).

"What time is it?" Bones asked, reaching for her watch on a nearby table as Booth put a coffee cup down near on the table.

"Let's go," he said, indicating the coffee cup. "Drink that on the way."

"On the way where?" Bones asked, putting the watch down as she looked at him.

"You know, to go check out the model... guide... whatever's place," Booth said, waving his hand vaguely as he looked at Bones (If she was going to help him in his investigations, she had to recognise when she'd need to pull her weight).

"Dahni," Angela clarified, nodding in understanding. "Can I come with you?"

"No, no," Booth said, wishing he had a better way to say this even as he spoke. "We can ask tougher questions if you're not there."

Once again, Booth had to admit to being impressed by Angela's personal strength when she simply nodded in understanding at his statement; even some of his old friends as Angel would have disliked the idea of him 'assuming' that their partners might not have been faithful to them.

"Wait outside while I get dressed," Bones said, as she began to sit up.

"No, uh uh; the sun's been up for an hour out there, it's already the surface of Mercury," Booth said, shaking his head in refusal as he picked up one of the doughnuts he'd brought earlier in one hand while using the other to briefly cover his eyes as he closed them, ignoring Bones's indignant glare in his direction. "I can stand here, close my eyes, eat my doughnuts; best I can do, OK?"

He knew that teasing his partner probably wasn't the most mature thing for him to do, but he'd spent so much time disappointing his family in his first life and then he'd been too serious to do anything 'wacky' as Angel that he felt he was entitled to goof off when the situation wasn't _that _serious.

* * *

As he drove along the desert road that would take them back to Angela's holiday house- although why anyone would willingly have a holiday in this kind of place Booth really didn't know; vampire or no vampire, there was something about this much heat that just made him feel uncomfortable-, he was already planning his next move after the squints' positive identification of the skull; he might be used to operating independently, but he had adapted to official policy over the last few years.

"I will call the F.B.I. office in Albuquerque and I will officially take over the investigation," he said; somehow, he felt more comfortable voicing his intentions in this kind of situation.

"I wouldn't do that," Bones interjected before he could say any more, the simplicity of her statement somehow more effective than if she'd said it louder or faster.

"Why?" Booth asked, glancing back at her in confusion; one of the reasons he joined the FBI rather than just becoming a detective in a city was the broader range of people that he could help with those kind of credentials, and hearing that he _couldn't _help someone despite that was more than somewhat frustrating for him.

"Desert dwellers are very insular," Bones explained, with the same rapid tone she normally used when discussing her subject (Sometimes Booth forget that she was a cultural anthropologist as well as a forensic one). "Mongolians, Bedouins of the Sahara, the Himloa of Kanana; good hosts, but extremely distrustful of outsiders."

"Bones," Booth aid, rolling his eyes behind his sunglasses in exasperation, "this the United States of America; it's not Outer Mongolia."

"The only reason Sheriff Dawes talks to us at all is because we know Angela," Bones commented (Booth was suddenly put in mind of the times when he'd only walked away from his meetings with Gunn's crew- before Gio showed up and everything fell apart between them and Gunn, anyway- because Gunn had vouched for him rather than because anyone else on his friend's old team genuinely believed that he wasn't the same as other vampires).

"Alex Joseph held a gun on us."

"I admit I've met friendlier people," Booth noted (Although, given his social history in the past, anyone he met who _didn't _want to kill him or be suspicious of him instantly tended to automatically win points).

"If a bunch of outsiders come in from Albuquerque, led by an outsider from D.C.," Bones said, looking earnestly at him, "I promise you, the people here will close ranks and shut up until we go away, then they'll take care of it in their own way."

"OK, who are you, Doctor Phil?" Booth asked, looking at Bones in surprise; that was probably one of the most insightful things she'd ever said when talking about _people _rather than bones.

"Who's Doctor Phil?" Bones asked, her usual display of the ignorance in the face of modern popular culture reassuring Booth more than anything else could have; it was good to know that some things didn't change. "Some kind of expert?"

"He likes to think so," Booth muttered(He might be annoyed at this fresh reminder that being human didn't make his attempts to investigate crimes any easier- having to answer to someone else made things a bit harder; Angel might not have had much official authority, but it was a lot harder to stop a vampire going where he wanted to go-, but he could move on and cope with what he did have available to him). "OK, look, I'll take what you say under advisement. In the meantime, we need to go find out who supplied Kirk with his peyote."

"Well, how are we going to do that?" Bones asked.

"Talk to his girlfriend," Booth replied after a brief, awkward pause.

He always hated it when a case required him to investigate a friend; whether it was a hangover from his own guilt over what he'd made Buffy and her friends have to face as Angelus, or a memory of how he'd felt when he first saw Willow's vampire doppelganger at the Bronze, he hated having to even briefly suspect people he knew of being involved in a crime of some sort (Angela might not be a suspect, but he _was _still questioning her about the death of her boyfriend; some people could see that as the same thing).

* * *

"Yeah," Booth said, casually studying Wayne Kellog as the engraver sat on the other side of the desk in the sheriff's office alongside his lawyer, passing him the piece of paper that he'd just received from the Hoover, "I got a warrant here to search your client's studio for engraving plates."

"Well," the lawyer- some guy called Larry Stansfield who put Booth in mind of a heavier version of that that 'Lee Mercer' guy who'd been beaten up by Faith, or maybe Gavin Park; great faith in the legal system with not much else going for him once that 'protection' was taken out of the picture- said, "as Mr. Kellogg's attorney, I can advise you you're certain to find some."

"I'm an engraver," Kellog said, in a tone that suggested Booth hadn't been aware of this earlier (God, why couldn't people just be smart in situations like this and admit the goddamn truth rather than trying to deny it all the time?).

"Larry," Sheriff Dawes said, looking pointedly at the lawyer, "did you tell Wayne about how when someone dies during the commission of a felony, everyone involved in that felony is charged with murder?"

"Counterfeiting is a felony," Booth added, allowing himself a moment's satisfaction as Stansfield and Kellog exchanged quick glances; he might not be Lindsey or Gunn, but when faced with the occasional difficulties of working in the system, it was always a pleasure when he was able to make those loopholes work for him.

"My client will confess to the counterfeiting charges in return for immunity from the murder charge," Stansfield said; Kellog seemed slightly frustrated at that turn of events, but at least he didn't object to this new angle of defence.

"Not good enough," Dawes replied (Booth wished that he could have given that kind of answer; the trouble with being an official agent was that too many other people would be criticised if he simply tried to beat a confession out of Kellog).

"He will also provide the time and place of the next pickup out in the desert," Stansfield added (Booth wondered how much this guy had known about what his client was up to; what kind of 'lawyer' allowed their client to knowingly break _this _many laws?). "You'll be able to arrest the actual murderers."

"When Sheriff Dawes says 'Not good enough', he means his sister, Larry," Booth said, glaring at the lawyer with the same cold stare that had always made Lindsey shut up before he lost his hand and his hatred of Angel had become too intense for intimidation to really have an effect.

"My client doesn't know anything about Dahni Webber," Stansfield said.

"What _does_ he know?" Bones interjected, demonstrating her usual willingness to focus on the central point rather than surplus details.

"One week ago, I arranged to meet some associates at an airstrip in the desert to pass on some commissioned artwork," Kellogg said after a brief pause.

"He means counterfeit plates," Bones said (Bones wasn't sure if he should feel amused or exasperated at her attempt to 'help' him; he could make allowances for her own social ignorance translating into an ignorance of how others would react, but it could still be slightly frustrating at times).

"As the plane landed, my associates noticed two people spying on them from a vantage point above the airstrip," Kellogg continued, a slight edge of exasperation to his voice even if he continued to talk fairly calmly. "They became very agitated. They commandeered my vehicle and they drove up the hill. I got in my Humvee. Then I drove up there. But I didn't see anything."

"Like blood on the hood of your vehicle?" Bones asked, her hostile tone making it clear that she didn't buy his statement any more than Booth did.

"Well, the fact remains that agreeing to this deal is the only way that you're going to catch the actual murderers," Stansfield said as he and Kellog stood up and walked over to the office's exit (Booth couldn't really call it a door), frustratingly casual about the fact that what he was discussing could make the difference between life and death for an innocent woman. "You know where to find me."

"Wayne," Dawes said, standing up to face Kellog, "I need to know if they loaded Dahni onto that plane."

"I never saw Dahni," Kellogg replied.

Whether it was the simplicity of the other man's tone or just his own frustration at the situation, Dawes grabbed Kellog's collar and pushed him against the wall.

"Sheriff!" Booth said, quickly standing up and walking over to stand behind the sheriff, ready to stop the other man if he looked like he was going too far.

"That's my sister," Dawes said, glaring at the other man, his control clearly frayed to the brink at the thought of her loss. "My sister!"

"I am truly sorry about Dahni, Ben," Stansfield said, a hand on Dawes's shoulder as he spoke, his tone suggesting at the closest thing to sincerity Booth had heard from the guy since this whole mess started. "Truly sorry. But I don't think Wayne knows anything."

"Come on, Dawes," Booth said- as much as he might dislike Stansfield's attitude, this wasn't like the old days when Gavin Park would break down and start talking just at the sight of Angel standing in his office-, helping the man back away from Kellog after he'd released his grip on the other man's collar. "Easy. Come on..."

As Kellogg and Stansfield left the office, Booth stood and glared after them for a moment before he turned his attention back to Dawes, who was now sitting back in his chair as he breathed heavily, clearly still shaken at the implications of what they might have learned.

"I guess we're going to have to take that deal, right?" the sheriff said at last, looking at nothing specific as he spoke.

"I was trained as an army ranger," Booth said, mentally adding on the tracking skills he'd developed as Angelus to that 'resume'; his sense of smell might not be what it was, but everything else could still get the job done. "That mean anything to you, Sheriff Dawes?"

"Yeah," Dawes said, nodding as he looked at Booth with a slightly renewed sense of hope in his eyes.

"I'd be more than happy to go back out to that crime scene and see if there's anything we might have missed," Booth continued.

"Appreciate it," Dawes said, nodding briefly in response to Booth's offer.

The former vampire didn't know if he'd find anything, but he did know that he couldn't afford to just give up because he hadn't found something yet; there was a rational explanation for this- nothing supernatural that could live in this desert would have taken the time to hide Dahni's remains like they had apparently been concealed-, so there was definitely _something _to find.

* * *

As he walked back to the bungalow after going over the last loose ends, Booth had to admit that he was generally rather satisfied with how things had gone; counterfeiters had been caught, murderers had been punished, and they'd managed to find Dahni Weber before she died of exposure.

He just wished that he still had access to Wesley or Giles after what Angela had just done; their research skills might have been better able to help him work out if there was something more to what had just happened than the obvious.

It could be a coincidence that she had managed to find Dahni in time to save her life, but Booth wasn't buying it. Of all the 'squints', he had always had a feeling that Angela would be the one to be most open to the possibility of there being something out there beyond the scientific; if any squint was going to show signs of talents outside of the norm, it was her (Not that he was going to _tell _Angela about that side of the world; she might be able to handle its existence better, but that didn't mean that she could handle what really _lived _in the world better than they could).

As he walked into the bungalow again, he smiled slightly as he saw Bones and Angela hugging; evidently, whatever they'd been discussing had been an emotional topic, but it looked like Bones had been able to help Angela get through the worst of it (Not that he'd ask about what it was, of course; even as Angel, he'd known when to stay out of what wasn't his concern).

"Well," he said, taking off his sunglasses as he looked at the two women, "Dawes and his deputies, they caught the counterfeiters. Dahni gave a statement saying that it was Kellogg who pulled the trigger on Kirk."

He focused his gaze on Angela as he moved on to his next topic. "Dahni knows that you saved her life. You pointed that helicopter in the right direction."

"Obviously," Bones said, turning away from him to look at Angela, "you subconsciously sifted through the rational facts of the case and processed the most likely scenario."

"I'm sure that's it," Angela said, smiling slightly in a faintly teasing manner as she looked at her friend.

"Yeah," Booth added, spreading his arms slightly in a mock-questioning manner that concealed his own awareness of the other explanations, "what else could it be?"

"Well, it's the only rational explanation," Angela said, continuing their 'joke'.

"Are you guys making fun of me?" Bones asked, looking uncertainly between him and Angela.

"You know," Booth said, deciding to cut that inquiry off before it could reach potentially awkward territory, "let's go back home, where there's water, shelter, and living things. Come on!"

As he grabbed his bag and walked away from the bungalow, Bones close behind him, he glanced briefly back to smile at the sight of Angela taking one last look around the place that had been her home for three weeks of each year, recognising in her stance the same feelings he'd felt when he had left his mansion in Sunnydale for the last time.

You could move on from your past, but when a place had that kind of impact on you, you could never really _forget _it; you could just cherish your memories of it as you moved on to the next stage of your life and hope for the best.


	19. The Man With the Bone

Disclaimer: I own neither Angel or anything associated with him, and "Bones" is equally out of my reach control-wise

Feedback: Appreciated

AN: Bonus points to anyone who recognises the relevance of the "Angel" reference towards the end of this chapter...

Angel of the Bones

As he walked into the side storage room, the file on what had been discovered about the bone in his hand, Booth smiled at the sight of the squints gathered around the table; somehow, the animated expressions on their faces leant him some hope that there was more going on here than just another talk about bones.

"Hey," he said, looking curiously between the squint squad, "what are we playing?"

"Doctor Brennan," Zack said, not looking up from the table where he was working, "the destroyer of evidence is here."

"OK," Booth said, the smirk fading as he walked into the room, "I assume that's a joke, so nobody gets hurt."

Even as he was speaking, however, he gave himself a few moments to considered what he'd just heard; for all of Zack's faults, the kid wasn't the type to _lie_...

"Did Harry really mess up that bone?" he asked, almost grateful that he didn't have to feel that offended on the other guy's behalf; one benefit of working in something like the FBI was that there were too many people employed by the agency for him to be as 'personally invested' in all of their abilities as he had been when he was running Angel Investigations.

"He dissolved any traces of ingrained particulates on the surface," Bones explained, examining the microscope-like device in front of her as Angela walked over to talk with Zack and Hodgins, "but we are still able to save some valuable attributes."

"Like what?" Booth asked.

"Alternating sclerotic and porotic areas on subperiosteal surface," Bones began, leaving Booth to casually examine his own finger through one of the nearby magnifying tools- he'd always been too confused by modern technology to take a closer look at Fred's stuff back when she'd run the science division even if her entire team _hadn't _been evil; it was kind of nice to feel relaxed enough to look at this kind of thing- before Bones reached over and snatched the tool from his hand without pausing her speech, "demonstrates that whoever this was suffered from tertiary syphilis."

"Tertiary syphilis," Booth said, his hands in his pockets as he rocked contemplatively on his heels, his mind casting back to try and recall where he'd heard that disease mentioned before. "Whoa... wow, that's the worst."

"It was a common ailment in the seventeenth century," Hodgins put in from where he was studying a piece of bone with a magnifying glass.

"Which is where the bone dates from," Bones put in with a slight smile.

"Say what?" Booth asked (He had to wonder if _his _bones would show that kind of age if he ever ended up on these examination tables; when the Powers had restored him to human form, had his skeleton 'regressed', or did it still show the years it had accumulated while he'd been Angel?).

"We ran a radiocarbon dating test," Zack said, walking around the table to pick up a file and hand it to Booth. "The finger's over three hundred years old."

"It's a unique find for the area," Bones said, sounding pleased with herself.

"I'm gonna change to French trapper," Angela added.

"You can't change yours," Hodgins muttered.

"Booth," Bones said, ignoring her team's comments, "where did they find the victim?"

"They shipped him over from some resort town next to a federal seaside preserve," Booth said, glancing over the file to refresh his memory. "Assateague Island."

"That's where the money pit is," Hodgins suddenly said, an eager tone to his voice.

"Money pit?" Bones repeated.

"Legend is..." Hodgins said, pausing with an overly melodramatic manner, "Assateague Island is where Blackbeard buried his treasure."

Despite his own age, Booth couldn't stop himself from looking enthusiastically at Hodgins, his mind flashing back to Xander and Gunn before he could stop himself; he could just imagine how _those _two would have reacted to that kind of news (Giles and Wesley would have been more controlled, Oz wouldn't really have had that much to say, Spike was relatively indifferent to the past if it wouldn't help him survive his next fight, and he was never sure if Lorne knew that much about world history outside of the music side of things)...

"For three hundred years, people have been trying to find it," Hodgins continued, his words having now drawn the attention of everyone in the lab. "They've dug it out to something like a hundred and fifty feet, but they've found nothing. Every time they come close, they trigger a baffle that floods the pit with seawater."

"Booby traps," Zack said.

"Cool," Angela added, grinning.

"The body was found at a dig site," Bones noted, glancing over the files with almost frustrating casualness.

"This is the first concrete evidence that the treasure is more than a legend," Hodgins said, his enthusiasm clear in every word he spoke. "I'll bet this is from one of the men who buried the treasure."

"Pure conjecture!" Bones interjected (Booth wondered if he should make some kind of comment about Hodgins discarding his own 'rules' about theorising after all the stories he'd heard about his debates with Goodman, but quickly decided there wasn't a point to that approach; he didn't find Hodgins _that _annoying).

"Pirate," Hodgins continued, his voice an eager whisper.

"Pirate?" Booth repeated.

"Pirate?" Zack said, eyes wide as he leaned on the table to look at Hodgins.

"It's a pirate," Hodgins said, clearly having abandoned his usual desire for meticulous evidence with this new idea.

"You can't change yours," Angela said, holding up an objecting finger.

"Wait," Booth said, unable to repress his excitement as he turned over this new theory. "So- so- the victim finds evidence that the treasure exists. Somebody else wants it all for themselves. That's certainly- that's a good motive for murder."

"We've gotta get out to that dig site and see what else we can find," Hodgins said, looking eagerly at him. "I'll be glad to help."

"That's OK," Booth said. "I'll- I can handle it."

"Come on, man, share the wealth!" Hodgins protested.

"We are looking for answers, Jack, not treasure," Bones said in an admonishing tone, stopping himself from asking why a man as private about his money as Hodgins would even _care _about something like that.

"Do you really think that treasure exists down there?" Booth asked, ignoring Bones's comment about their focus on answers as he grinned at the thought.

"What do you think?" Hodgins asked.

Somehow, Booth couldn't help himself; he joined Hodgins as the two exchanged eager laughs at the thought of what they had just discovered, a similar if more subdued grin on Zack's face confirming that he shared their amusement.

"Why are you guys smiling?" Bones asked, a humouring yet confused expression on her face as she looked between the three men.

"_Pirates_!" Booth, Zack and Hodgins yelled simultaneously, grinning around at each other; it was the first time Booth had ever _really _felt like he was connecting with his new teammates.

"It's a guy thing, sweetie," Angela said, with a resigned tone.

Somehow, the simplicity of that statement meant more to Booth than anything else Angela could have said; after years of being 'out of the loop' when it came to social terms back when he was Angel, the idea that he had progressed to the point where he could enjoy a 'guy thing' just like the rest of his colleagues was surprisingly pleasant.

* * *

Looking at Assateague Island from a purely recreational perspective, while ignoring the issue that he was there to investigate a murder, Booth had to admit that he could see why people liked coming here normally; even without the historical implications of Blackbeard's association with the area, it _was _a very nice place...

Still, right now he wasn't here to sightsee; he was here to question the Mayor's wife about her alleged relationship with the dead man.

"Everyone knew Macy," Katie Ney said as they walked along the marina, an eager smile obvious even in her tone. "Helped Frank get elected."

"So, you would categorize your relationship as just friends?" Booth asked, trying to remain diplomatic; somehow, the fact that this woman's attire made him think of what Faith might have worn if she'd 'gone pirate' wasn't helping him focus...

"Yeah," Katie replied, looking away from Booth with an overly cheerful edge to her voice. "Friends. It's a small town; we're all friends."

"Well," Booth pointed out with a slightly sarcastic chuckle, "whoever killed Macy wasn't too friendly."

"He wouldn't hurt a soul; Macy," Katie said, a wistful expression on her face at the memory. "He was a sweet guy."

"The way you're talkin' about him," Booth said, deciding that it was time to cut to the chase, "it seems like you were more than just friends."

For a moment, Katie simply stopped walking as she turned to look at the water, her hand on the railing and her face twisted into an expression that Booth didn't need his past as Angel to recognise as self-loathing.

"Hardewicke told you, right?" she said, as she looked out at the sea. "Like he's such a saint."

"How involved were the two of you?" Booth asked, deciding to avoid answering that particular question.

"It was just... one of those things, you know?" Katie replied as she looked back at him. "I wasn't gonna leave Frank or anything. I guess I wanted to see what it was like to be with a real adventurer, rather than a guy who dresses up like one."

"Frank went after Hardewicke when he thought it was him," Booth concluded., leaving the implications of that statement up to the woman he was addressing.

"You think Frank killed him?" Katie said, looking at Booth incredulously. "You saw Frank."

"Well, yeah," Booth said, his tone careful as he spoke- there was no point angering a potentially useful witness-, "you know, he's a little, ah... a little unstable. And he finds out somebody... made a fool of him twice, I..."

"It's Hardewicke and the rich guy you should be looking at," the woman said resolutely. "Macy said they were all fighting over the money they were spending. Said Hardewicke didn't appreciate all the work he did, wanted to break up the company."

"Well, we're... we're looking at everyone," Booth said, noting that at least he'd found _something _useful from this awkward experience. "Thanks."

"Sure," Katie said, only to stop him as he began to walk away. "But... all this coming up again... just try not to ruin my marriage, OK?"

Booth couldn't entirely believe this; she'd cheated on her husband for reasons that put him in mind of that 'Owen' guy that Buffy had dated briefly back in the early days of Sunnydale- he vaguely recalled meeting the guy once, although he mainly remembered that night as the first time he was even indirectly introduced to Cordelia-, and _now _she was apologising?

"I made a mistake," Katie said, apparently fighting back tears as she spoke, "but I love that stupid pirate and I don't want to lose him."

"Well," Booth said, resisting the urge to point out that she was the only person to blame if she did lose 'that stupid pirate' after cheating, "thanks for talking to me. I'll... I'll be in touch."

There were times when Booth really didn't understand human relationships.

Say what you like about vampires, but at least relationships between them were simple; you spent time together, killed people together, fought together, occasionally stabbed each other in the back if survival demanded it, and that was that.

God, why _did _some people feel this ridiculous need to try and look for adventure when they weren't capable of coping with that kind of pressure themselves...?

* * *

The trickiest thing about being Booth as opposed to being Angel, Booth reflected as he stood in Goodman's office, looking between Goodman and Cullen, was the fact that Booth had to answer to people; that year or so he'd spent when he was technically subordinate to Wesley didn't really count because he'd still been 'unofficially' in charge, given that Wesley had still been willing to listen to his recommendations or instincts when he felt it was important enough to rely on them...

"OK," Cullen said, the FBI Deputy Director pacing in one direction as Goodman paced the other way with his hands behind his back, leaving Booth to lean awkwardly against a chair as Bones stood off to the side, "let me see if I get this straight. The pirate bones you recovered came from the Jeffersonian to start with."

"Correct," Bones said.

"Three hundred year old bones stolen from our own pirate exhibit," Goodman clarified grimly.

"And then recovered by one of your own people?" Cullen asked.

"Doctor Hodgins," Booth confirmed, ignoring the implications of the fact that he'd just spoken of Hodgins as though he was one of his people rather than just a guy he occasionally worked with.

"Who brought them back to the Jeffersonian... where they were stolen again?" Cullen finished.

"Re-stolen... sir," Booth said, hoping he'd have the chance to make up for this particular issue later on; trying to cope with satisfying the demands that both Cullen and Goodman could make on his time wasn't exactly simple...

"You've got a security problem, Doctor Goodman," Cullen said, looking bluntly over at Goodman.

"And when I find out who did this, you may have a murder problem," Goodman said, a mildly defensive tone to his voice.

"But I'm on top of it, OK?" Booth said, looking at Goodman before he turned to Cullen. "You didn't have to come down here, sir."

"That's what I thought until I got a call from someone on the Department of Defence," Cullen replied, folding his arms as he glared over at Booth.

"Defence?" Booth repeated, wondering what political twist he'd missed for this case (God, he missed the old days of fighting Wolfram & Hart; at least if he'd upset anyone during a case back then they'd have been people he'd _want _to upset). "How do they figure into a murder investigation?"

"Branson Rose," Cullen responded. "He has friends in high places and they don't like it when the guy who builds their bombers is unhappy."

"Are they afraid he'll bomb them?" Bones asked, leaving Booth to look over at his partner in exasperation at her usual lack of tact in front of his goddamn _boss_ (God, he _hated _being subordinate like this; at least when Wesley was put in charge of Angel Investigations he'd been confident that he made a valid independent contribution to the team that would encourage them to keep him on).

"What?" Cullen said, glaring at Bones before he shifted his gaze over to Booth. "What is that? Squint humour? Because I'm not laughing."

Booth simply stood in silence, his head down and jaw tightening to stop himself saying anything he'd regret later on.

"Defence doesn't need a reason to go to war, and I'm not about to be their next target," Cullen concluded.

"We haven't ruled Rose out as a suspect," Bones put in.

"Well, of course not," Cullen said slightly sarcastically. "You're too busy looking for your bones."

"Let's not make this personal," Goodman cut in.

"Rose wants to keep playing in the mud, and his big-shot friends are going to see that that happens unless we come up with some answers fast," Cullen continued, apparently accepting Goodman's protest and moving on from that line of inquiry.

"At this point," Booth said, wanting to reassure Cullen that they were still doing their job, "it appears as if the stolen 300-year-old bones are being used to, you know, salt the shaft."

"'Salt the shaft'?" Bones repeated (Booth wondered sometimes if part of the reason he liked spending time with her was the opportunity to be the one offering social advice after he'd spent so long being the one receiving it).

"Yeah," he explained, standing up to face her. "You know, an investor spends a million bucks, he gets antsy when nothin' happens, and then- _viola_- you know, pirate bones appear and, uh, the golden goose keeps, you know… laying those eggs."

"OK," Bones said, looking at him with her usual expression of cultural confusion- how had she missed hearing the tale of the goose that laid the golden eggs, for crying out loud?-, "that is a... convoluted metaphor, Booth."

"It's a hoax, Doctor Brennan," Goodman clarified. "Like Piltdown man."

"Oh, got it," Bones said, before she turned to look questioningly at Booth. "Why can't you be clear like that?"

"Assume the bones were stolen-" Cullen said, cutting off Booth's attempt to remember exactly what the 'Piltdown Man' thing they were referring to was (He _thought _it was some kind of fake alien skeleton, but he wouldn't like to swear to it; that kind of thing had always been Gunn's line of interest rather than his).

"Re-stolen," Bones corrected again.

"Re-stolen so you wouldn't figure out they were bogus," Cullen corrected himself without complaint, "how did you?"

"How did I what?" Bones asked.

"From the finger," Goodman clarified, recognising what Cullen meant. "They didn't get the entire skeleton. Would you like Doctor Brennan to take you through the process?"

"I really, really wouldn't," Cullen groaned, shaking his head briefly before he turned to Booth. "So who do you like?"

"I like the partner," Booth said, confident of his ground on this theory; his fondness of the memories evoked by the man's first name wouldn't let him cut the guy _that _much slack, after all.

"Giles Hardewicke," Bones confirmed.

"Access, motive, ability," Booth clarified with a slight smile.

"Doctor Goodman, the F.B.I. will provide whatever help you need to solve your breach of security at the Jeffersonian," Cullen said, before he turned to Booth. "You work the, uh, partner angle."

As Cullen walked out of the office, Booth could only hope he looked calmer than he felt; in this situation, an idea wasn't the same thing as a confirmation, and they still had no _concrete _evidence to identify the killer one way or the other...

* * *

As he pulled up in the excavation field, Booth tried not to feel too intimidated at the sight of Dane McGinnis on the platform as he exited the car (He'd worry about the implications of the guy being crouched down later).

"Guy was a navy SEAL," he commented to Bones as he walked around the truck, answering her earlier question about McGinnis's military position.

"So?" Bones asked. "You were a guide."

"A ranger," Booth corrected, grateful for anything to distract him from what he was about to do (It was frustrating how reliant he still was on his old vampiric near-invulnerability at times, but he wasn't going to let Bones use the wrong term for his mortal profession that casually). "I was a ranger, Bones, OK? I was _not_ a guide; guides, they show you waterfalls, they sell you cookies. I was a ranger."

"What's he doing at the shaft?" Bones asked, walking towards the platform before Booth grabbed her arm, a horrible suspicion dawning on him as he looked at their latest 'enemy'...

"Are rangers afraid of SEALs?" Bones asked, drawing him back to the present once again.

"What?" Booth said, shooting Bones a look; after so long being something that gave most demons and humans automatic nightmares, he hated it when people drew attention to his current shortcomings. "Come on, Bones, no. Wha- rangers aren't afraid of anything, all right?"

The look he received in response prompted him to amend that statement with "SEALs are... pretty good, though."

With that said, he turned his attention back to the platform as he and Bones advanced towards their target, quickly taking in the sight of Dane sitting on a crate as he fed an air line down through the shaft, only occasionally glancing at the monitor alongside him as he worked.

"Hey, Dane," Booth said, quickly noting the implications of the current situation; maybe they could bluff their way through this and get everyone back up before revealing their knowledge of his crime.

"Oh, hey," Dane replied, his tone equally casual. "What's up?"

"We know it was you," Bones said, quickly ending any thoughts Booth might have had of bluffing his way through this situation as Dane's expression became grimmer.

"Bones, please," Booth said, resisting the temptation to sound more vocal as he spoke.

"Why?" Bones asked. "You have a gun. What's he got?"

"He's got somebody in the shaft," Booth replied, wondering how someone who could spot minor indentations on bone could miss something that obvious.

"_How far down am I_?" a voice said over the radio, Booth recognising the voice even before Bones asked if it was Hodgins. Before he had finished processing the identity of the voice, Dane had already grabbed a section of the air hose and was holding a knife to it.

"_Hey, Dane_?" Hodgins said, unaware of the danger he was in as Booth pulled out his gun and aimed it at the other man, Bones simply frozen beside him. "_I can't read my depth display. Hey, is somethin' goin' on? Is there annny-body up there? Why don't you answer me_?"

"C.P.O. McGinnis, step away from the air hose," Booth said, trying not to think about

"Yeah?" Dane replied, his manner grim as his knife remained against the air hose. "Well, I need you to toss that gun into the shaft. And toss me your keys. And handcuff yourselves to that crane. I take your truck."

Booth could only shake his head at that order; he was _not _going to let this guy get away...

"Otherwise," Dane said, still staring coldly at him- for some reason Booth couldn't help but feel reminded of Corbin Fries; the scale of the threat might be different, but in both cases innocent bystanders were the ones who were going to suffer if the other guy couldn't escape punishment-, "I am gonna cut this hose, and your buddy's gonna die."

"Yeah," Bones said, nervously patting his ribs with the back of her hand as she stared at the knife. "Do that."

"Bones," Booth said, trying to ignore the part of himself that wished he could agree with Dane's order before he turned his attention fully back to the other man. "Not gonna happen."

"_If you can hear me_," Hodgins continued, "_tug on the air hose. I feel a blast of cold water. It's either a spring or some kind of conduit from the ocean. It's clear, clean water, so visibility is better_."

"You killed two men," Booth continued, trying to ignore Hodgins's voice; he'd failed to save too many friends already, and he was _not _going to lose another because some guy felt like other people had treated him harshly. "I can't just let you drive away."

"Oh, those guys," Dane said, a bitter sneer to his tone as he stared unblinkingly back at Booth

"Puttin' fake bones in there, makin' the whole thing into a con job. My brother died down there looking for that treasure. A lot of good men did. This was their life. Those men dishonoured them."

"_Dane, can you hear me, man_?" Hodgins said again, the monitor on the platform confirming the 200-foot distance between the forensic entomologist and oxygen if he lost his air hose. "_I am on the bottom_."

"You good enough to take that shot before I cut this air hose, ranger?" Dane asked with a slightly taunting tone.

"Pretty good," Booth replied; after aiming a crossbow, guns were really almost simpler by comparison, even if he'd never really used them back in the day due to his greater reliance on physical strength.

"What?" Bones asked apprehensively. "Just pretty good?"

"Please, I'm working," Booth whispered impatiently at her, his eyes briefly flicking away from Dane to look at her before he returned his attention to the other man.

"_I'm gonna need some more slack in the line, Dane_," Hodgins said, his hands visible on the monitor as he searched through the soil below him. "_What's going on? I'll get a sample. I can see where the shaft wall has collapsed before... oh my God_."

As Hodgins paused in his search, Booth tried to ignore his awareness of Bones's anxious glances at the monitor showing Hodgins's current status; he had to stay _focused_...

"_Holy sh- Damn_!" Hodgins said, clearly enthusiastic about his new find. "_Can you see this, Dane_?"

As Bones leaned over to view the monitor, Booth risked a glance of his own, but refused to show his satisfaction at the sight of Hodgins holding a shiny gold coin; they might just have gained the _one _bargaining chip they needed to save Hodgins's life...

"What is it?" Dane asked, still staring straight ahead of himself.

"Why don't you take a look?" Booth retorted grimly.

"Yeah," Dane said, a wry expression on his face. "I do and you'll shoot me."

"_Dane_!" Hodgins continued, holding the coin up to the lamp on his helmet to get a better view of his discovery, laughing with glee. "_Can you see this, man_?"

"It's a gold coin," Bones said.

"Yeah," Dane said, disbelief clear in his voice even as a slight edge of desperation in his voice made it clear that he still _wanted _to believe what he was hearing. "It's, uh, probably something else they stole from the museum and threw in there."

"_This is real_!" Hodgins said, the other man's simple honesty dashing that line of argument before Dane could really start to convince himself of it. "_It's a big_-!"

Seizing what might be his last chance, Booth quickly shifted his gun to point at the monitors and fired twice, blasting out the monitor and terminating all sound connection to Hodgins before he trained the gun back on Dane, smoke streaming from the now-cracked monitor.

"You want to see it, you're going to have to bring Hodgins up," Bones said, looking firmly at Dane before her voice softened. "Please. He's down there because he believes."

For a moment, the only sign that Dane had even heard Bones's attempted plea was a slight furrow around his brow, prompting Bones to try again.

"He's no different than you," she said, her tone still the same earnest honesty that had first drawn him to her. "No different than your brother."

"Bring him up," Booth said, his gun ready and his voice intense as he looked at the other man.

"Do it for your brother," Bones added, a gentleness to her voice that Booth could never have believed he would hear from the socially inept anthropologist back when they'd started working together...

After a long moment, Dane visibly struggling with himself while Booth kept the gun trained on him, the ex-SEAL yanked the knife away from the hose, dropping the hose into the water before thrusting the knife into the grid near his foot in obvious frustration with himself.

The worst part was over; now all Booth had to do was get Hodgins up and get Dane into custody, and let _other _people worry about the treasure...


	20. The Man in the Morgue

Disclaimer: I own neither Angel or anything associated with him, and "Bones" is equally out of my reach control-wise

Feedback: Appreciated

Angel of the Bones

As he stood in the voodoo shop, Booth had to wonder how things had reached this stage; even after all the years since he'd been Angel, somehow he _still _ended up dealing with some kind of supernatural-esque case.

Admittedly, he doubted that whatever had happened to Bones would actually involve demons or spirits- if anyone was capable of throwing off supernatural attacks, it would be Bones; she'd probably logic the spell or spirit to death before it could do a thing to her-, but there was definitely something going on here beyond the obvious.

He just wished that she could have been the victim of some kind of more conventional magic; even when you weren't dealing with the actual corpses, voodoo was _murder _on the nose regardless of if you were a vampire or a human...

"Whoa," he said, taking of his glasses as he studied a building that looked like a less welcoming version of the Magic Box (One thing about being a vampire that he didn't miss was how sharp some scents could be; this place would have just _reeked _if he'd still been Angel right now). "What's that smell?"

"I imagine everything smells in here," Bones said, only for Booth to find his attention drawn to a picture of a red Cadillac Brougham on the counter.

He might have only an amateurish interest in cars- his restoration hobby was based on the times he'd spent working as a mechanic in the past to make some money in his better, pre-Buffy days, and it was an easy way to kill time in his present human state-, but that car was a _serious _work of art.

"Whoa..." he said, bending over to examine it with an exaggerated awe in his manner; it never paid to ensure that people underestimated you, particularly when he now lacked most of his old advantages. "_Please_ just tell me that that car survived Katrina."

"We used it to evacuate," a man said as he walked through a beaded room divider into the main store, dressed casually in a white shirt and fawn waistcoat with greying dark hair.

"Did you restore it yourself or did you use voodoo?" Booth asked, falling back on his now-usual jocular manner when dealing with the supernatural; if he encouraged the idea that he didn't believe, it could give him an edge when dealing with a serious practitioner.

"Ah, an unbeliever" the man said, chuckling slightly as he put down a book that he was holding. "What can I do for you?"

"You, uh..." Booth said, taking the ingredients bag they'd acquired from the John Doe's corpse out of his pocket and putting it on the counter, "you know what that is?"

"This is a dark spell," the store-owner said instantly. "Forbidden magic. Very strong. This is Secte Rouge. I certainly wouldn't make anything like this."

"But you have the ingredients here?" Booth asked, trying not to think about the implications of the 'spell' comment; the last thing he wanted was anyone else being cursed...

"Well, the individual ingredients are not malignant," the store-owner said grimly. "It is how they are combined and what intention they are used for that makes a spell good or bad."

"Do you recognise me?" Bones asked, leaning forward slightly.

"No," the man replied with what seemed like honest confusion (With his partner's sanity at stake, Booth would accept _nothing _at face value). "Should I?"

"Anyone else work here?" Booth asked, noting the slight disappointment on Bones's face at this news.

"My daughter, Eva," the man replied with a proud smile. "What is this about?"

"We're conducting an investigation," Booth said, showing his FBI badge.

"Eva!" the man yelled, before turning back to address them. "What kind of investigation?"

"Is it true that this is the only place a person could buy black gum root?" Bones asked.

"Yes," the man confirmed. "Most places like this are all gone now. It's not a coincidence."

As he turned around, he passed them a small sample of black gum root, just as a young woman in an orange dress entered from the back room.

"Yes, Daddy?" she asked, looking at the shop owner inquiringly.

"Have you ever seen this lady before?" he asked, indicating Bones as the anthropologist looked back at her

"No," the new arrival said in confusion. "Why?"

"We need to know who's brought this lately," Bones said, holding up the black gum root.

"Don't they need a warrant?" Eva asked her father.

"Ah," her father said, laughing uncomfortably before apparently deciding to ignore that question. "Eva will pull up what you need on the computer. Eva?"

Booth privately noted the prompting tone of the shop-owner's voice even as Eva moved over to the computer to begin carrying out his request; he didn't know quite why just yet, but there was definitely _something _going on there...

"What you said before," he asked, deciding to focus on questions he had a better chance of learning the answers to, "what did you mean just a coincidence?"

"Most places like this, where a houngan, a priest, can get what he needs, they are all gone now," the shop-owner explained, an awkward tone to his explanation that could have been the result of him not believing what he was saying or because he thought they wouldn't believe it.

"Because of the hurricane and the flood?" Bones asked.

"Which occurred because of a lack of balance," the shop-owner replied.

"Mr Benoit," Bones said- Booth didn't bother about her currently sceptical tone; even with his experience of magic-wielders, he doubted this place had anyone even approaching the level of Willow or Cyvus Vail-, "are you suggesting that Secte Rouge somehow conjured up a hurricane?"

"Secte Rouge voodoo is much more powerful than ours," Eva began from where she was still working on the computer.

"No, Eva, not more powerful," Mr Benoit said, looking over pointedly at his daughter. "Destruction is easier than harmony, but not more powerful." He shrugged slightly as he looked back at Booth and Bones. "There are a lot of misunderstandings about voodoo."

"Yeah, that whole zombie thing puts a crimp in your public relations, I bet," Booth said, trying not to think about the disturbing reminders of some of the spells he'd seen in the past that had reanimated the dead; he didn't want to jinx this whole situation by trying to look for things that might not be there.

"These are the people who have bought black gum root in the past month," Eva said, handing Bones a list that she quickly scanned before one name caught her attention.

"Graham Legiere, the medical examiner," she said, handing the list to Booth as he studied it grimly.

Even if this 'Legiere' guy turned out to be a dead end, he was still the only person on their list that Bones recognised by name, which gave them a _very _promising personal connection...

* * *

After so long possessing the necessary authority to investigate most crime scenes that he encountered, the idea that he was once again 'reduced' to an unofficial observer as the local police department photographed the body that was most likely Graham Legiere was something that Booth was already certain he didn't like; he'd been virtually useless when he was Liam, he'd done very little with his life when he initially regained his soul- obviously anything he didn't as Angelus didn't count because it wasn't _him_-, and he'd promised himself long ago that he wouldn't sit by if he could do something in future.

The fact that the body had been arranged in such a manner only made it more disturbing; all those stakes that had been keeping it held up there, and the only thing he could do was stand back in case someone started asking questions about why 'Seeley Booth' was so interested in the occult...

"What exactly were you doing here?" the woman who'd introduced herself as Detective Harding said, her notebook in her hand as she addressed him and Bones at the top of the stairs.

"It's Graham, isn't it?" Bones asked.

"Tell you what, Doctor Brennan," Harding said, looking firmly at his partner as she folded her arms. "I'm going to ask the questions."

"Oh, come on, Detective, she was working with the guy," Booth protested.

"How closely?" Harding asked.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Bones asked, clearly as close to indignant as he'd ever heard her sound (She really wasn't that expressive at the best of times).

"Answer my question, please," Harding said. "What brought you here? Was it a social call? Business? Revenge killing?"

"Look," Booth said, glaring at the detective- why were some investigators so focused on finding what they perceived to be the easy answer rather than getting the facts?-, "Legiere bought some black gum root from the voodoo store; we just stopped by to ask why."

"Why?" Harding asked.

"That's what we came here to ask," Bones said, her usual literal manner once again making a difficult situation even more awkward.

"You wanna look behind me and remind yourselves why I'm a little low on sense of humour?" Harding asked, glaring at the anthropologist.

"That wasn't a joke," Bones said, with that usual confusion that Booth privately found amusing if it wasn't for the fact that this was a serious situation.

"Oh, no, she's not wisecracking," Booth said, anxious to end that particular train of thought before it got any worse. "She just tends to be a bit literal."

As Bones began to tell Harding about the mojo she'd found in that John Doe's mouth, Booth casually scanned the corridor, looking for that one little clue that might fill in the gaps in this whole mess-

His eyes fell on a distinctive earring lying by the leg of a hall table- an earring whose 'twin' was hanging from Bones's uninjured ear-, and he barely resisted the urge to swear.

Even if he knew that Bones could only have been here by chance, _that _couldn't be good...

"Look," he said, turning to look back at Harding as she sarcastically asked his partner when the amnesia had occurred in relation to the voodoo consultation, "the amnesia's real."

"Graham purchased a rare ingredient at a voodoo shop on Pontchartrain Avenue," Bones added.

"So," Harding said, "Graham made voodoo spells, shoved them into corpses' mouths, then pretended to be surprised when he found them?"

"What's that?" Booth asked, as another policewoman came up beside them with something in her hand.

"Ma'am?" the policewoman asked, ignoring Booth as she turned to talk with Harding. As the two women examined whatever had just been discovered, Bones walking over to get a better look, Booth took advantage of the brief moment when no attention was being paid to him to bend down and pick up the discarded earring he'd seen earlier, slipping it into his pocket just as he heard Harding order the new discovery to be bagged as evidence.

"Secte rouge?" Bones asked.

"What do you know about Secte Rouge?" Harding asked, turning to glare at Bones just as Booth stepped back, the earring safe in his pocket.

"If you're done with us, Detective, we're going to go," Booth said, taking Bones's arm and heading for the stairs.

"I'm gonna tear this place apart," Harding said firmly, "and if I find one piece of evidence that ties you to this scene, I will take you into custody."

"Wait, do you really think that someone could go into a trance, commit a murder like that, and not remember it?" Bones asked.

"No, I don't," Harding said with a brief shake of her head. "But I sure as hell think someone can fake amnesia."

"That's great; thank you, detective," Booth said, quickly ushering Bones out of the building before she could say anything else.

Knowing Bones, she'd probably just go and incriminate _herself _if he let her stick around here any longer than was absolutely necessary, despite the fact that the voodoo stuff alone could rule her out; she'd never go to _those _kind of lengths to fake a murder scene even if she was capable of that kind of thing...

* * *

"It could have been me," Bones said (Booth was just grateful they'd returned to her hotel before she started sprouting this kind of theory; for a woman with such an allegedly high IQ, Bones could be so _thick _at times).

"Do you remember that?" he asked, looking resolutely at her.

"Look at it objectively," Bones said. "Graham Legiere was killed between 11:00 p.m. Tuesday and 3:00 a.m. Wednesday. Not only do I not have an alibi, I...I can't even explain to myself where I was. It could've been me."

"No, it couldn't," Booth said, trying to lighten the grim mood that he felt threatening him after that last statement sunk in.

He _knew _that Bones couldn't do something that brutal to anyone- he'd learned long ago how to determine what some people were capable of and what they weren't capable of, and Bones was _not _capable of being that single-mindedly 'devoted' to torturing someone to death, regardless of what they did to her-, but the idea that she could _believe _it...

"How do you know?" Bones asked, the question drawing Booth's attention back to the present conversation.

"I just know, OK?" he said, looking thoughtfully out of the window; the situation that had brought him here might be grim, but this city wasn't that bad a place. "I'd bet my professional career on it. I already did."

"What?" Bones asked.

"Nothing," Booth said promptly; with Bones in her current mode of thought, the last thing he wanted was to give her anything that might support her mad idea that she'd killed somebody last night.

"What did you do?" Bones asked again.

"Bones!" Booth said, glaring at her. "Stop; this is the last time and place that you want to be rational, OK? Let's just be wildly emotional and assume that you didn't psychotically murder a co-worker who invited you over for dinner."

His train of thought was halted as he noticed something on her pillow. "What's that?"

"What?" Bones asked.

"That," Booth said, pointing at the item, Bones quickly walking over to pick it up with a slight murmur of disgust that told Booth everything he needed to know about how disgusting it would have to be to inspire that kind of reaction.

"Is it another voodoo dumpling?" Booth asked, as Bones began to examine the object.

"It's some kind of flesh," she said, examining the interior. "And these are seashells... and leather, I think."

"Is that a human tooth?" Booth asked, squinting slightly as Bones took the object in question out of the bag.

"Yes," Bones said. "A canine."

Before Booth could ask her if the tooth's presence had any significance to her, the door to the room suddenly burst open and Detective Harding rushed in, her gun drawn and several other policemen behind her, their weapons aiming at the two already in the room even before Booth drew his own gun.

"Put down your weapon, Agent Booth," Harding said.

"Put down your weapon," Booth countered. "There's no threat from us."

"You're holding a gun on me," Harding countered.

"Yeah, well, you know," Booth said, waving his finger and resisting the urge to point out that they were the ones who'd broken into a room without declaring themselves first, "my finger here, it is not on the trigger; it's the best I can do under the circumstances."

"Holster your weapons," Harding said after a moment's pause, placing her gun back into her holster, followed by the other detectives. "I'm here to arrest Dr. Brennan for the murder of Graham Legiere."

"Whoa, that's not gonna happen," Booth said, walking forward to glare firmly at the detective.

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure it is," Harding countered.

"I told you, Booth-" Bones began.

"Bones, please!" Booth said; how anyone could be this smart and lack so much common sense totally bemused him (Willow, Wesley and Fred had been prone to talking too much at times, but that was just them getting enthusiastic about their topics rather than ignorance of how everyone around them would react). "Just once in your life, will you be quiet?"

"That's good advice because everything you say can and will be held against you in a court of law," Harding said, her gaze falling on the bag they'd been examining earlier. "What is that?"

"I... I found it on my pillow," Bones said, handing the bag to Harding.

"Bones!" Booth groaned- why such a smart woman was being so careless about her _own _possible freedom he didn't know-, ignoring Harding's brief thanks as she dropped the mojo bag into an evidence bag before focusing on the key issue of any arrest. "What's the probable cause?"

"Traces of Dr. Brennan's blood in Legiere's home, Legiere's blood on her clothing from the clinic," Harding replied.

"Is that it?" Booth asked; those things could account for Bones finding the body and trying to _help _the guy rather than her being responsible for his _death_.

"All I'm prepared to share with the federal government," Harding said

"Now please, step away from my collar."

"I'm afraid I can't let that happen," Booth began, only for Bones to step forward and offer herself to Harding, leaving Booth to slap himself on the head in frustration. "Bones! Geez!"

"It's better if nobody else dies while we get to the bottom of this," Bones said as Harding put the cuffs on her.

"Well, you know what, I wasn't planning on dying," Booth said, looking in exasperation at the anthropologist.

"It's not you I worry about," Bones said, wincing slightly as the handcuffs were applied to her wrists. "You're welcome to the room; it's paid for."

As Harding shoved his partner out of the room, Booth could only wait until they'd all gone before he pulled her earring out of his pocket, staring at it in frustration as he tossed it into the air out of a lack of anything else to do with himself.

Even if he had access to evidence that the rest of them didn't have, he _knew _that Doctor Temperance Brennan wasn't a killer; the only question now was how to convince the police department of that fact when even Bones herself thought that she could have done this...

* * *

As he sat in the restaurant, looking at his battered but unbowed partner as Sam Potter walked away, Booth could only hope that whatever 'spell' the guy trying to conceal the truth about John Doe 361 had used on Bones marked the limit of whatever magic potential he might have; as it was, her lack of memory could be attributed to natural, if slightly strange, circumstances, but anything more and he really ran the risk of forcing Bones to confront something that he wasn't sure she'd ever be ready to face...

"How'd I get away?" Bones asked, looking uncertainly at him as their food arrived in front of them. "You know, Graham got killed. I got away. How'd I do that?"

"You know, Bones," Booth said, casually picking at his food, "all those things that Carolyn mentioned, you know, the...the martial arts, the shooting, the...uh...the assaults... It's just...you're the type of woman that fights. Maybe they didn't expect it. Maybe they thought some kind of magic could hold you."

"I don't believe in magic," Bones said.

"Exactly," Booth said, pointing at her in a firm manner. "You're a surprising woman. Sometimes that's enough for getting away."

The smile Bones gave him in response was enough to distract him from the worst parts of the memories that statement evoked; memories of a young woman from Texas, as brilliant in her field as Bones was in hers, who'd survived so many dangers because nobody expected her to be capable of doing so, finally felled by a force that consumed her from within...

"Why are you nice to me?" Bones asked.

"Because..." Booth said, looking contemplatively at her before he decided on the best answer in this situation. "Because they think they get away with it."

"What?" Bones asked.

"They burn their victim, they blow 'em up, they toss 'em in the ocean, they bury them in the desert, they...they throw 'em to wood chippers," Booth explained, smiling as he verbalised what he liked most about their line of work; they could catch the people who might otherwise have gotten away with it because it took too long to discover the evidence of their crimes. "Sometimes, you know, years go by. They relax. And they start living their lives like they didn't do anything wrong. Like they didn't spend somebody else's life in order to get what they got. They think they're safe from retribution. But, you make those bastards unsafe. That's why I'm nice to you."

"I couldn't do that without you, Booth," Bones said, a wistful tone to her voice.

"Yeah," Booth said, taking the opportunity to lighten the mood. "So... uh, you should be a little nicer to me, huh?"

As he smiled at her, he was grateful to see Bones smile back at him; after the past few days, the fact that she could smile at anything was a greater indicator that she was going to be OK than anything else he could have witnessed.

"I really should," Bones said thoughtfully.

"Yeah," Booth replied.

"I walk in on something?" Carolyn Julian's voice suddenly said, the distinctive form of the overweight red-haired woman walking towards them to stand beside their table (She might be an unusual presence, but Booth had to admire her ability for getting the job done, even if it wasn't exactly the kind of job he'd asked her here to perform).

"Beignet and a cafe," she said to a nearby waiter, before she sat down in the now-vacant seat at the table. "Hospital records. The tox screen was negative."

"What?" Bones said, her former good mood replaced by confusion. "That's impossible."

"No Rohypnol, no ketamine?" Booth asked (He might not be a science whiz, but he _did _pay attention).

"Nothing but a touch of alcohol; not enough to affect a baby," Caroline said firmly. "A jury is never going to believe this amnesia story."

"Well, it's true," Booth said, wishing that he had something more to offer than a defence that he knew was weak even as he said it.

"Maybe this is true, too," Caroline said, turning to look at Bones. "Legiere tried to rape you- he was a notorious horn dog-; we claim self-defence, cop a plea, you're out in three years."

"Nah," Booth said, looking firmly at Caroline. "I don't care what it looks like or how you're reading the evidence, Carolyn; she didn't do it."

"Could be that's true, Seeley," Caroline said, not responding to the obvious gratitude on Bones's face as she looked at him; for Booth, the fact that he had a credible lawyer fully on his side was one of the real indications of how much he had changed since his time as Angel. "You vouch for her, that's good enough for me. But, chéri, this looks bad. All you've got on your side is proof you got roughed up; these pictures from the clinic, these X-rays..."

"My wrist," Bones said, studying the X-rays in the files that Caroline had just passed to her. "The doctor was wrong. He said this was a Colles fracture from a fall. This break shows surface trauma on the outside of the bone; this was either defensive or someone slammed my wrist into something."

"Maybe because you tried to stab him in the heart with a knife?" Caroline pointed out.

"No, think about it," Bones said, smiling as she spoke. "If I'd already stabbed the attacker, he wouldn't have been able to break my wrist."

"I like this story," Caroline said, voicing Booth's own satisfaction to hear his partner finally trying to defend herself. "What else?"

"Well, there's the mojo bag," Booth said; given the circumstances, he could probably get away with saying that he believed the intent even if he doubted that it would have actually worked. "I mean someone was trying to put a forgetting spell on her."

"Booth," Bones said indignantly.

"Hey, I can work with that," Caroline said with her version of a smile on her face. "This is New Orleans, baby."

They might still had some way to go to determine where to look next, but at least Bones was finally operating on the assumption that she _hadn't _experienced a psychotic breakdown that would make her act against everything she held dear...

* * *

"I got in the middle of a battle between two religious sects," Bones said as the two of them sat in her office with the rest of the squint squad- Goodman was absent, but he was generally more of an overseer at this point- later that night, charges dropped and the case concluded; the situation back in New Orleans might still be religiously complicated, but at least their role had concluded. "Benoit used Hurricane Katrina as a diversion to take the soul of a voodoo priest."

"And he killed his own daughter," Angela said grimly.

"Dark sorcerers suck, man," Hodgins noted.

"Oh, but, you know, he intended to bring her back to life," Booth added.

"There's not really any such thing as spells and magic," Zack said (If a situation ever arose where he had to tell at least some of the squints about magic, Booth _really _hoped he wouldn't have to explain it to Zack; he wasn't sure he'd have the patience to get through the young man's fixation on his old facts, where Bones at least was willing to learn from everyone rather than just her specifically-acknowledge 'peers').

"What are you talking about?" Hodgins said, looking slightly incredulously at Zack. "He put a forgetting hex on Dr. Brennan."

"But it wasn't the spell that made me forget," Bones protested. "It was the drugs. Rohypnol."

"Blood test didn't find any," Booth reminded her.

"Gamma hydroxybutyrate?" Bones asked

"Not a trace," Booth confirmed.

"Sodium pentothal?" Bones suggested.

"Nope," Booth said again.

"Severe emotional trauma," Bones threw out.

"Honey, even I think you're too strong-minded for that," Angela said with a sympathetic smile.

"There were too many delays in doing my blood test," Bones continued without even a hint that she had needed to pause to think about her next answer. "That, plus the adrenaline of my escape... the drugs were out of my system."

"They put the voodoo on you, baby," Hodgins said, chuckling as Booth made a mock voodoo sign with his arms, before Hodgins' expression became more awkward as he took in Bones's reaction. "I... didn't really mean to call you 'baby'."

"You guys, stop it," Bones said firmly. "_Now_. I mean it."

"Do you believe in voodoo?" Zack asked. "Because even if a small part of you believes in it, then it has a grip."

"I do not believe," Bones said simply.

"Maybe just a little?" Booth asked, leaning over to look at her.

"No," Bones replied simply.

"Good," Booth said. "Because, you know, if you have any doubts, we'll just have Benoit send you back one of those little satanic mojo pouches from prison."

"Booth, objects have no intrinsic power," Bones said, looking firmly at him. "A person's future does not depend on some...thing. Things are just things. They do not have... magical meaning or powers."

The interesting thing about that statement was that it was one of those rare occasions where Booth could prove her wrong without revealing his past; objects like the Gem of Amarra or the Orb of Thessulah might have power on their own, but even simpler objects like the claddagh rings he and Buffy had exchanged so long ago had some deeper meaning behind them...

Opening his hand, he revealed the earring that he had acquired from the crime scene- the earring that was one of the few things his partner had left of her mother-, holding it casually in front of him as Bones stared at it.

"Where'd you get that?" she asked.

"What does it matter?" Booth said, as he placed the earring in her hand. "It's just a thing, right?"

Even as he walked out of the room to head for a warm bed after a very long day after only a few moments of conversation, he know that he'd made his point; even in a world without magic, some simple objects could still have some kind of power over others.


	21. The Graft in the Girl

Disclaimer: I own neither Angel or anything associated with him, and "Bones" is equally out of my reach control-wise

Feedback: Appreciated

Angel of the Bones

As he walked through the hospital ward with Bones and Angela, booth wished that they could do this somewhere else; even without the unfair nature of the circumstances that had brought them here- society should be past the point where _kids _faced death from disease-, he _never _felt comfortable in these situations...

"Uh... Agent Booth?" Angela asked, even as they continued walking down the corridor.

"Yes, Angela?" Booth replied, already knowing that he wasn't going to like whatever she had to say to him; she never called him 'Agent Booth' when things were doing well.

"This is the paediatric cancer floor of the hospital," the forensic artist said.

"Yeah," Booth confirmed, wishing that she hadn't just said it like that.

After so long dealing with people getting killed by demons, facing death by ritual sacrifice, or variations of the above, the idea of people dying of natural causes was one aspect of humanity that he still had trouble with, probably because he'd had so little contact with it as Angel (Marcus's death by heart attack didn't count- after everything that bastard had done to innocent men to relive his own youth, his heart condition could have been considered just payback rather than simple time catching up with him-, and even when Joyce had died he'd only learned what had killed her second-hand, and there was always the possibility- even if he never liked to consider it- that Dawn's existence had contributed to her condition).

"Right," Angela said, briefly indicating her bag. "Well, uh, what I'm about to show Deputy Director Cullen is kinda gruesome."

"Why are we meeting Cullen here?" Bones asked, glancing up from the papers she'd been studying in a file.

"Because he's the deputy director of the FBI and this is where he wants us to show it to him," Booth said, only to be met with stares from the two women that made it clear they weren't going to accept that as the sole response.

"OK, listen," he said, looking awkwardly at them and hoping that Bones wouldn't over-analyse what he was about to tell her. "About a month ago his daughter Amy was diagnosed with cancer. Meso..."

"Mesothelioma," Bones clarified as they walked around a corner. "Lung cancer."

"Exactly," Booth said grimly. "So she's not doing so well, so it's a lot easier for us to come to him right now."

"Huh," Bones muttered, apparently to herself.

"Huh, what?" Booth asked, looking sharply over at Bones; he recognised that tone of voice, and it was _not _one he wanted to hear in this kind of situation.

"Nothing," Bones said. "It's just that's an extremely rare form of lung cancer; odd for someone Amy's age to contract-"

"No, no, no," Booth said, turning sharply around to hold up a firm hand to stop the anthropologist going any further. "No probing, OK? Not to Cullen, not to his family. This will take five minutes; we go in, do the show and tell relating to the case and then we're out of there. Is that clear?"

"I just think it's peculiar-" Bones began.

"No," Booth said firmly.

"But I-" Bones protested.

"No," Booth interjected (Why was it she _still _couldn't take a hint at times like this?).

"You have to admit-" Bones tried to say.

"Booth," Cullen's voice said, his tone clear as Booth turned to face his superior, dressed for once in a more casual woollen top rather than his usual suits. "Doctor Brennan. How appropriate, you two bickering in an adolescent wing."

"Uh, sir, yes," Booth said awkwardly; hopefully Cullen didn't know just _what _they had been arguing about. "Um, is it OK if we come in, sir?"

"What do you think, sweetheart?" Cullen asked, calling back into the room to the young dark-haired girl sitting up in bed, sketching away.

"Booth's cool," the girl replied with a warm smile despite her condition. "Most of the time."

"You heard the lady," Cullen said, looking at Booth with a slightly resigned expression. "You're cool."

Somehow, even Bones's implied disbelief of that assessment didn't tarnish Booth's good feelings about that description of himself; after Dawn had mainly seemed to be impressed by him because of the 'vampire-fighting-his-instincts' angle of his existence, it was nice to hear that he could still be 'cool' to kids who only knew him as a human rather than anything else...

Then he reminded himself where they were, and chided himself for thinking about something like that in a hospital where children were _dying_.

God, he just wanted to be out of here and back to dealing with a killer that he could pummel into unconsciousness without being accused of police brutality...

* * *

"Your daughter's cancer originated in the bone graft," Bones explained, looking solemnly at Cullen as they stood in his office, Booth for once standing behind his superior's desk while Cullen himself paced around the office, clearly struggling to process the news they'd just revealed to him. "The test confirms it."

"It was the operation?" Cullen asked, looking in slight-but-significant shock at the two of them.

"Not only was the bone contaminated by malignancy, it was significantly older than documented," Bones continued (Booth wondered if her just _talking _about it like that was her way of coping; he _knew _that she wasn't insensitive to the whole experience).

"It-it was... expired or something?" Cullen asked, looking between them in confusion.

"No, sir," Booth clarified. "It just came from a much older donor."

"Someone in their sixties," Bones confirmed.

"Hospital error," Cullen said, letting out a brief sarcastic laugh.

"The next step would be to find out where the graft came from and how it slipped through the system," Booth said; he didn't understand most of what he'd learned from the squint squad about bone grafts, but judging by the squints' response to their discovery, he could be fairly sure something like this would have to be the result of far more than a filing mistake.

"This is not FBI jurisdiction," Cullen said, looking between them both as though trying to find something.

"It's a question of justice," Booth said grimly.

"Does this, in any way, change my daughter's prognosis?" Cullen asked, a slight tremor the only indication that what they were discussing was personally affecting him.

"No," Bones said, after a moment's pause.

"So she's still gonna die of this cancer?" Cullen said, the pain in his eyes one that Booth hoped he'd never have to experience himself; even when he had seen Connor die at Gunn's hands in Hell, he'd had hope that he could do _something _to the cause of Connor's death even before he and Wesley had figured out how they could reverse it...

"Barring spontaneous remission... the likelihood is... significant," Bones replied after an uncertain pause; she might not always get why people felt the way they did, but she clearly wished that she could provide him with a better answer.

"The FBI's not my personal police force," Cullen said, looking down for a moment before he continued talking, his expression tight as though fighting to maintain control of it. "I appreciate what you discovered. Call Charlie Hammond, CDC, tell him what happened...he'll continue the investigation."

"My team can still-" Bones began as Cullen turned to leave.

"We'll notify CDC right away," Booth said, cutting Bones off; Cullen's trembling tone of voice towards the end made it clear that he wouldn't appreciate further discussion on this topic right now.

He might still be convinced that there was something more going on here than a simple mistake with inappropriate bone marrow, but they weren't going to get anywhere arguing with Cullen when he was trying to maintain some professional control.

Right now, he'd just have to take a few vacation days to find out more about this situation and allow the selfish part of himself to hope that he'd get those days back when they found what they were looking for.

* * *

As he walked into the coffin display area, Booth tried to restrain the urge to shudder; vampire stereotypes aside, coffins never failed to make him uncomfortable, ever since he'd dug his way out of his own one when he was Angelus.

As he'd told David's client during that whole mess with the memorial stone, he'd spent enough time in that one to know that he didn't want to go back; those things might look comfortable, but there was no way it could ever _be _comfortable if you had to lie in one while you were still alive.

"What's this place?" he asked, looking around at the various coffins in shades of grey, white, brown or black (What was the _point _in having a different colour of coffin; other people saw the things once and the 'user' generally never saw it themselves).

"Casket showroom," Bones responded. "They're having a sale."

"Well, it looks like a sick department store," Booth said, looking around the room briefly before turning to lead his partner out. "Alright, nobody would be cutting anybody up in this place; let's go."

"Whoa," Bones said, pointing at the other end of the room. "Wait; over there."

"What?" Booth asked, following the finger to where it pointed at the small grey thing sticking out of the wall at the other end. "It's a water line; what's the big deal?"

"But the floor slopes towards the centre of the room," Bones explained, looking around the room as she continued to speak. "This wasn't always used for a showroom. I wonder what's under the carpet... If body work was done in here," she explained, taking out a pocket knife and crouching down to cut out a piece of the carpet, "they'd need a drain."

"You're kidding me," Booth said, examining the familiar sight underneath the piece of carpet Bones had just cut away. "It's a drain?"

"This is our sales office," Martin the funeral director said, walking into the room behind them with an indignant glare. "There is nothing in here you need to see. The only thing in this room is caskets."

"I'm not so sure about that," Bones said, looking up at him briefly before walking off towards an air vent in an upper part of the room.

"No, what..." Martin asked, still glaring at her with the frustration of a man- in Booth's experience- who was trying too hard to convince people that he'd done nothing. "You are making a mistake."

"Am I?" Bones asked, closing a casket and climbing up on top of it to look at the vent more closely.

"She's ruining my merchandise," Martin protested.

"Come on, how much is that one?" Booth asked, indicating the coffin with a smile; how much could anyone charge for this kind of thing-?

"Seven thousand dollars," Martin replied.

"Bones, watch the scuff marks," Booth said, privately wondering why anyone would pay that much for a coffin; he'd heard of dying in comfort, and could understand people wanting to ensure that their loved ones' last days were relaxing, but where was the point in spending that much money on something that would probably get cremated or just left in the earth to rot?

"Mr. Martin, this room is designed to be washed clean," Bones explained, turning to face them as she indicated the room around them. "You've got drains in the floor. I think this is where you did the bone harvesting. When you thought we were coming back, you moved everything around."

"That's absurd; I did no such thing," Martin said, as Bones grabbed a mask and swab from her bag before resuming her work.

"You're an excellent house cleaner, but in the carpeting and tidying up, you forgot about one thing," she said, opening the air vent and swabbing the inside before she examined the result. "Bone dust. You forgot about airborne particles."

_Jackpot_, Booth thought to himself, smiling in satisfaction at the awkward look on Martin's face.

They might not have a confession from the guy yet, but they sure as hell had enough to bring him in for questioning (Although why someone who sold merchandise worth that much felt that he needed _more _money Booth didn't get; what was wrong with just being comfortable rather than opulent?)...

* * *

As he sat opposite Martin in the interrogation room, Booth wondered how Cullen was coping with this situation; the fact that he was actually watching the interrogation said a great deal about the kind of personal investment he had in this case, but it couldn't exactly be easy to be so certain that they were facing the person who'd essentially killed his daughter.

Even if Martin hadn't played as direct a role in Amy's potentially imminent death as Holtz had played in Connor's corruption, it still wasn't something that it was really easy to accept...

"How much money have you made over the years doing this, Nick?" he asked, glaring at the man before him; even if he hadn't been performing the operations, the man had still provided the bodies that had caused this problem in the first place, to say nothing of the operating theatre where the samples had been taken. "Tens... oh, hundreds of thousands of dollars."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Martin replied (Why this guy thought that would work after everything they'd discovered so far Booth had no idea; there was no way anyone could perform those kind of operations in his building without him knowing it unless he was so thick he made Cordelia and Xander at their worst look like MENSA candidates).

"William Hastings had an aggressive form of cancer that was very rare," Booth said, taking care to maintain physical control even as he allowed his voice to reveal his anger at the other man's actions. "You made some pocket change off his grafts, you didn't even tell his wife. Now a bunch of people are sick; two died. You're looking at multiple counts of murder."

"I didn't kill anybody," Martin replied.

"No, no, you didn't kill anybody," Booth admitted, even as the contempt in his voice remained; trying to cut corners to make money in such a risky manner might not be illegal in itself, but it wasn't exactly reassuring for the families that had trusted this guy to show some respect to their loved ones. "I mean, they were already dead; you were just recycling."

"I didn't do anything wrong," Martin said, his voice still frustratingly 'in control' for someone in his position even if they were definitely getting him on-edge with their current line of questioning.

"Do you have any doctor training?" Booth asked; maybe the change of topic would put the guy off-balance enough to make a mistake.

"No," Martin replied.

"Spend any time in the service as a medic or a nurse?" Booth continued.

"No," Martin replied again.

"No?" Booth repeated, indicating the file in his hands as he continued to speak. "Then who did the cutting? Who did the cutting of the grafts, huh? Somebody knew what they were doing. Your phone records show that during the months around Hastings' death you received dozens of calls from disposable cells. Four different ones, huh? What do you make of that?" he concluded, slamming the file down onto the table.

"I don't recall this," Martin said, looking at the file with a dismissive angle that only increased Booth's anger towards the man; even with the evidence piling up, he was still desperately lying like a child trying to get himself out of trouble, simply denying everything rather than trying to present any kind of cover story...

"You know what?" Booth said, glaring at the man as he leaned over the table. "The dust that we got off the vent in your showroom matched Hastings and seven other bodies. Who do you work with?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Martin replied.

"I think you do," Booth said, glaring coldly at the man who continued to deny his role in the deaths of innocent people simply because he'd wanted to make some quick money. "I think you and your partners knew that the bones were cancerous, and you didn't-"

"Who was it, huh?" Cullen said, the door slamming open as he walked into the room, glaring at Martin. "Who the hell did this to my daughter?"

Before Booth or Martin could say anything, Cullen had picked Martin up and slammed him against the wall, control a forgotten thing as he roared his further requests for the identity of the person who'd torn his family apart...

Even as Booth struggled to get Cullen to move away before he did something he'd regret later, he knew all too well what kind of pain was motivating the other man; hadn't he done the same thing to Wesley when he'd abducted Connor?

He might have confidence that they'd find this bastard's partner eventually, but what good would that do Cullen when he and his wife would still lose their daughter at the end of it all?


	22. The Soldier on the Grave

Disclaimer: I own neither Angel or anything associated with him, and "Bones" is equally out of my reach control-wise

Feedback: Appreciated

Angel of the Bones

As he walked through the graveyard where their latest victim had been discovered, Booth wondered how he should feel about the fact that he felt a connection with all these graves here even when he'd only briefly fought in _this _kind of war himself.

It wasn't like he hadn't spent his life fighting anyway, but that was fighting demons and magic-wielders in a secret conflict that so many people in the world would never know about that you could imagine was 'restricted' to the task where you were playing your part; these guys went out to fight a war on a scale that make it virtually impossible for any individual to make a difference, and yet they kept on trying...

"I never get used to the magnitude of this place," he said, looking at the graves around them as he and Bones walked to their crime scene. "What it's taken to keep this country free..."

"All societies build monuments to their dead," Bones responded. "To convince future combatants that it's an honour to die in battle."

"For these servicemen, it was," Booth said, his tone quiet but firm; he didn't have to have fought alongside them for all of the battles that he remembered to believe in what they stood for. "And somebody to use this place to protest the war just pisses me off. These are the lives that gave them the right; these men... they should be respected."

"If they were really respected, maybe not so many of them would be buried here," Bones said, as they walked among the FBI team already gathered around the scene.

"Are we going to get into something here, Bones?" Booth asked, glaring briefly at her.

"I don't see why," Bones replied. "I think we both wish this place were a lot smaller."

Even as the other agent led them over to where the body they'd come here to investigate had been discovered, Booth couldn't shake the feeling he'd felt when Bones had made that statement.

The soldiers in the war he'd been a part of for most of his existence might not be buried here, but in the end, Bones was right; when you got down to it, both of them wished that the graveyards were smaller...

Then he saw the body lying on top of the grave beyond the crime scene tape, and thoughts of the past were forgotten in face of what was now in front of them, the assessment of the body just background detail.

Even if he hadn't fought in the same kind of war as these men had for this length of time, the fact remained that people should _not _show this kind of disrespect to those who gave their lives for something...

"...wouldn't he have left a note?" Bones asked, drawing his attention away from his private reflection and back to the present.

"Didn't need to," he said, as Bones pulled on her gloves, recalling the files he'd received about this case as he leaned over to look at the body. "It's on Charlie Kent's grave; press was coming out to do a tribute to him for the one-year anniversary of his death."

"Charlie Kent?" Bones asked, as she shone one of her strange torches on the body (It probably helped her look for something, but Booth couldn't be sure what).

"He was in the National Guard," Booth replied. "About to be drafted by the NBA when he got shipped out to Iraq. He gave his life taking out a group of insurgents to save his unit; won the silver star."

"It's male," Bones said; she had still been examining the body while he spoke. "African descent. Approximately 20-29 years old. Too early to determine cause of death."

"I'm not a pro, but I'm guessin' fire," Booth said, cursing at himself even before Bones turned to look at him; after some of the stuff he'd seen as Angel, he should know that just because a body was dead and badly burned didn't mean that it was in that condition because of the fire.

"The White House and the DOD want an ID as soon as possible," the agent who'd shown them to the body said.

"So they can brand him as a traitor," Bones finished.

"Why do you have to be so cynical?" Booth asked; as much as he appreciated his partner's honesty, like Cordelia in Sunnydale, she needed to learn the value of tact at times.

"I'm not cynical," Bones said, as she stood up to walk around to examine the remains from the other side. "It's a necessary psychology of warfare. Heroes and villains; without clear distinctions like that, we'd never be able to fight."

"Yeah, well," Booth said. "I always found being shot at... was a motivating factor."

As he glanced off to the side, his gaze fell onto the name of a nearby grave, and his earlier thoughts were lost at the sight of the name on the grave.

_James Richards_.

His military career might be a mixture of real and fake- most of it was all just artificial memories as far as his presence in the conflict was concerned, even if he knew that the people he remembered meeting had been real-, but that didn't mean that he didn't empathise with the people who made a choice to take up the fight when they had to.

Seeing this grave... so close to where something so terrible and pointless had taken place...

"What?" Bones asked, breaking into his train of thought as she walked under the crime scene tape to stand beside him.

"It's Jamie Richards," Booth said, indicating the grave; he was peripherally aware of Zach picking stuff up from around the crime scene, but this was more important right now, and it wasn't like the kid didn't know what not to do on his own. "We were in the Rangers together. He was hit by a roadside bomb... just outside the green zone. He left... a wife... and two kids. The fact that he was near this..."

"You believe, somehow, he's still here, watching?" Bones asked.

"Yeah," Booth replied, swallowing slightly, trying to fight down his reaction; a part of him knew that he was exaggerating his own feelings over Richards' death because he couldn't express his grief over the death of his friends as Angel without too many questions, but even without that Richards' death still sucked. "You don't. I get that."

"I know you think he's a good man," Bones said, as he crouched down in front of the grave. "That's... that's enough for me."

Somehow, that simple sentence improved Booth's mood more than anything else Bones could have said; the thought that someone trusted his judgement to the point that they assumed that someone he regarded as a good man would _have _to be a good man...

After the suspicion he'd occasionally received back when he was Angel and talking about some of the contacts he'd made back then, it made a refreshing change for people to regard his old acquaintances as good people simply because he judged them as such.

* * *

"The victim had lamb about an hour before his death," Hodgins said, studying some kind of tissue sample as Booth walked into the lab. "Of course, it's a little overcooked now."

"Toasted himself," Booth said, as he walked over to the table. "Who cares what he ate?"

"Just doing our jobs, Booth," Bones said, from where she was currently examining the victim alongside Zach.

"Big boys telling you to sweep this one under the rug?" Hodgins asked casually.

"Just can the left-wing conspiracy, Hodgins," Booth said, pointing at the body as he spoke. "Probably one of your nut-ball friends here on the table."

"Don't think so," Hodgins replied with a slight smile. "Fabric found at the scene was cotton with synthetic polymers. Dye: olive green. This dude was wearing a military uniform; he's one of yours, not mine."

Even if Booth consciously knew that even that statement wasn't entirely accurate given the length of time he'd actually served in the army, that didn't make him feel any better; those men might have never technically been his colleagues, but that didn't mean that he didn't admire their willingness to fight for what they believed in...

"OK," Angela said, from her position studying a screen behind him. "His name is Devon Marshall; he served in the Guard with Kent."

"What?" Booth said, looking sharply around at the artist's newest revelation.

"He was there in Mosul the night Kent was killed," Angela explained, the computer screen in front of her displaying Marshall's military record.

"He was protesting?" Zack asked, still standing beside the body even as Bones walked over to look at the screen with him and Angela.

"Marshall could've had a chance of heart," Hodgins said, his tone slightly dismissive in a manner that Booth didn't appreciate. "It's not like support for the war is increasing."

"It also could've been survivor's guilt," Booth said, glaring back at the entomologist. "The guy who saved his life didn't make it; you can't imagine what it's like carrying that around."

"I don't think so, Booth," Bones said, looking awkwardly at him before she walked back over to the body to indicate a hole in the skull. "There's evidence of damage on the external auditory meatus, here and here."

"I'm sorry, you know, but I left my phrase book at home," Booth said, turning around with a frustrated glare.

"The opening in the skull where the auditory nerves feed into the brain," Zack clarified.

"So we're talking ear hole?" Booth said, not even bothering to hide his exasperation; honestly, even Giles or Wesley at their worst had been willing to phrase things simply rather than constantly using the longest word possible to describe whatever they were talking about...

"Yes," Bones said as she looked back at him.

"They simplify these words for a reason, people," Booth said, looking in frustration at the group around him; he _knew _that they were smart, so why did they seem to feel the need to emphasise that at times?

"Something was jabbed into his ear," Bones confirmed, her voice slightly slower than normal.

"OK, that's clear, but why?" Booth asked.

"There's scrapings within the cranium and marks on the inside of the parietal and occipital," Bones continued. "Whatever was used was pushed completely through his skull."

"Someone scrambled his brain, then set the fire so there'd be no tissue left to see what had been done," Hodgins said, wincing slightly at his summary of events.

"Exactly," Bones said, looking from Hodgins to Booth. "Devon Marshall didn't die in the fire. He was murdered first."

Even the knowledge that this wasn't a protest statement couldn't make Booth feel any better now that he knew he was dealing with a murderer.

* * *

"Jimmy loved that guy," Booth said as they walked away from the shaken young soldier; he'd known that the war was bad, but even with his own experience as a soldier before he returned and joined the FBI, it was still sometimes only possible to really understand what war could be like when he saw people in that kind of condition. "He didn't kill him."

"Now you're a mind reader?" Bones said, raising her eyebrows sceptically.

"Maybe," Booth replied, trying to lighten the mood even if he couldn't bring himself to smile when making even such a weak joke. "You want me to guess your weight?"

"You do and you could lose a tooth," Bones replied- he thought that she was joking, but given the neutral delivery he couldn't be sure- before she continued on the original topic. "Booth, you've got to stay objective. Jimmy was one of the last people to see Devon alive. He admitted they went to the cemetery. Jimmy could've killed him."

"Oh, here we go," Booth said; for someone who liked facts, Bones was getting good at this part of detective work. "I thought you didn't like speculation?"

"I don't; that's why I took this," Bones said, pulling an object out of her pocket and showing it to him. "Cigarette butt; see if we can pull any DNA from it and match it to anything he left on Devon."

"Right," Booth countered. "If you got what you need, then why are you giving me such grief?"

"Because I thought you could've been a little tougher in there," Bones said, placing a restraining hand on his arm as he moved to walk away, pulling him back to face her.

"I'm tough," Booth countered, wishing he would take that statement back as soon as he'd voiced it; what was it about being human that made him regress to start acting like Xander Harris of all people when he was under stress?

"Most of the time," Bones said, in a nonchalant manner that nobody would have completely believed.

"Do you always have to get the last word in?" Booth asked, chuckling slightly at her statement.

"I like to, yeah," Bones replied.

"Booth!" another voice said before the ex-vampire in question could say anything, prompting him to turn around and look at the grey-haired man rolling towards them in a wheelchair. "Son of a bitch."

"Hey, Hank!" Booth said, smiling warmly at the other man; their 'real' time together might have been brief, but Hank was one of the people he'd really bonded with when he'd first been dropped into his new life as Booth, and it was always nice to meet up with the people who, even if they hadn't known it, had helped him adapt to being human again. "How the hell are ya, man?"

"Great," Hank replied, with a casual smile. "Just got some new wheels."

"Sweet ride, man," Booth replied (That was one thing he'd always admired about Hank; even after losing his legs, the man didn't give up and brood), as he indicated his partner. "Hank Lutrell, Doctor Temperance Brennan."

"The bone lady," Hank said, smiling as he shook Bones's hand.

"That's me," Bones replied, a slightly wry look on her face as she looked at Hank.

"I heard you two were working together," Hank said, looking at Booth with an approving smile before he addressed Bones. "Booth and I were in the same unit in Kosovo. Hey," he said, turning his attention back to Booth, "you gotta come over for dinner. Janie and the kids keep asking about you."

"Yeah, I'd love to," Booth said. "I'll call; we'll, uh, make a date, OK?"

"Great," Hank smiled. "I gotta role; I've got to be in court at 3:00."

"Yeah," Booth said.

"They can't start without the judge," Hank said as he turned around.

"I'll call," Booth added, patting Hank briefly on the shoulder as the other man rolled away, picking up the front wheels of his chair as he turned around to address Booth directly.

"Hey, call me or I'm gonna kick your ass," Hank called back before he turned again and rolled off down a corridor, leaving Booth to sigh at his departure.

After that meeting with Jimmy, it was always good to know that _some _people had managed to cope after their losses in the war...

"What happened to him?" Bones asked.

"He got hurt," Booth said, deciding to leave it at that.

As much as he respected Hank's ability to adapt to his handicap, he _really _didn't want to hear Bones going on about whatever she might have to say about the injuries Hank had sustained or their long-term implications or crap like that...

* * *

Staring at the various items gathered in front of him, Booth tried not to think too much about the body lying on the morgue table behind him; this whole situation might be necessary to get at the truth, but that didn't mean he had to like it.

"You know," he said, picking up one of the medals in a probably foolish attempt to take his mind off what they were about to do- why was it that Kent's body looked so comparatively fresh after being buried for a year?-, "this is a Silver Star."

"I know how much you hate this, Booth," Bones said, her tone soft as she looked back at him.

"Let's just... get this over with, all right?" Booth said, swallowing as he put the medal back with its fellows.

"OK," Bones said, as she turned to address Zack and Hodgins, "I want a full set of X-rays, and a clear picture of all fracture patterns, and a tox screen and analysis of any particulates in the wound."

"DOD wants this done fast," Goodman said solemnly. "They want this out of the press as soon as possible."

"It will take the time it takes to do it properly," Bones said, before she turned her attention to Angela. "Can you run scenarios on the angles and the entry order of the shots?"

"Yeah," Angela said, glancing over the photos. "I should be able to give you something."

"I know we don't see eye-to-eye on a lot of stuff," Hodgins said, as he walked over to pick a tray of instruments close to where Booth was standing, "because you know, politically, I think we live in an Orwellian nightmare due to-"

"What are you trying to say?" Booth said, folding his arms and glaring at Hodgins.

"Just... I'm sorry, man," Hodgins said, nodding awkwardly at Booth. "I really am."

Even as Hodgins walked away, Booth had to admit that he appreciated the entomologist's awkward effort; no matter how uncomfortable the other man made him at times- the guy's resemblance to one of the staff at Wolfram & Hart had always left him slightly on-edge, even if he knew that there was no connection between the two men-, when it counted, Hodgins _was _a good man.

"I'll need X-rays of L-1 through four, and the left scapula," Bones said, as Booth turned away from the uniform and medals to stand at the head of the table where Kent's body currently lay.

"He's just a kid..." Booth reflected, wondering if it sounded as weak to Bones as it did to him; after his time in Sunnydale alone, he knew that youth was no guarantee of safety from death and murder, but that didn't make it any easier to accept people dying this young in an era when the diseases that had threatened his youth were virtually wiped out.

"It's always the young," Bones said, looking up from the body as she spoke. "Anthropologists have theorized that wars break out when there's an increase in the population of unmarried men under the age of 25."

Looking over at his partner, Booth found himself fighting the urge to attack a friend in a way that he hadn't felt since he first faced Wesley after Connor's abduction; the idea that she could just reduce war to... _statistics_ like that...

"I'm sorry," Bones said, her awkward tone dispelling all thoughts of violence as she looked awkwardly at him. "I need to create a distance from the victim. It's how I deal. I- I didn't mean-"

"Just... you know, do what you have to do," Booth said. "I'm going to go do my thing."

It probably wasn't the best time for him to just walk off, but with there being nothing left for him to do here, he was going to try and see if the other members of the unit could give them any answers.

* * *

"Look at the two of us," Hank said as he smiled at Booth from the other side of the table, the current meal providing Booth with a welcome if subtle break from the case (Hank might have been in the army but he wasn't involved in _this _case). "You with a badge, me in the courtroom; both trying to find justice, eh?"

"That's why we fought, right?" Booth said.

"That's what they told us," Hank replied with a brief shrug.

"What?" Booth said, looking at Hank inquiringly. "You don't believe it?"

"Sure I do; you don't look like you do," Hank said, his slight smile faltering as another thought occurred to him. "You're not gambling again, are ya?"

"No, man," Booth said (That was one part of the human condition he'd never expected; a part of him wondered if his past life as a vampire had just left him 'inclined' to find something else to be addicted to at first, but he'd dismissed that as excessive 'paranoia' after he'd gotten over it). "No, I've been good, you know; I've been going to my meetings... I haven't even played a game of Monopoly."

It didn't take him long to come to a decision about what to do next; with a case like this, he needed to voice his frustrations to _someone _before they built up...

"Listen, Hank," he said, his voice lowering as he spoke. "I got this case, Charles Kent... It's friendly fire."

"Oh, God," Hank said, wincing at the implications.

"Yeah," Booth said. "Covered up. Two of the members of the squad are dead. One murdered. You know, whatever went down must've been pretty ugly."

The solemn shake of the head Hank gave Booth in response to that revelation was enough confirmation for Booth that his friend understood his point.

For the moment, he wasn't Seeley Booth, ex-army sniper and current FBI agent, wondering about the point of his past military service; he was Angel, former vampire Champion of the Powers That Be, wondering whether the cause that he'd dedicated himself to for the last few years of his vampiric existence had actually been worth it, even if he'd received his humanity back as a result...

"You know, Hank," he said, awkwardly thinking over the best way to say this without admitting the truth about himself. "You know what, uh... you know what we did..."

"Don't go there, Booth," Hank said, shaking his head in a conciliatory manner.

"Was it worth it?" Booth asked. "I mean, look at you."

"You saved my life," Hank replied casually. "I got a great family because of you."

"Yeah," Booth said (At least _that _part of his history in the army was real; he was never sure how to feel when discussing things that had happened before he 'became' Booth. "But, I mean, why was it always a secret?"

"We were given a choice," Hank replied firmly. "They always gave us a choice."

"Yeah," Booth replied, "but that last time..."

"Well, you knew what was at stake," Hank said, looking sympathetically at Booth.

"Yeah..." Booth said, nodding grimly at the memory; even with a soul, there were some things he'd done that he wished he could forget.

"You never talked to anybody about it?" Hank said, leaning in closer to address Booth in a lower voice.

Booth could only shake his head at that; talking about Angelus's crimes was one thing, but Faith seeing him drink that doughnut shop guy during her 'mind-walk' was more than enough for him as far as sharing the guilty secrets of his past went.

"You've got to," Hank said. "How about your girlfriend? That doctor?"

"Nah," Booth said firmly. "No, she's- you know, she's just my partner."

He didn't want to pursue this particular line of thought; it made everything _far _too complicated...

"You know, look, I got work," he said, seizing on the first excuse for his departure that he could think of without appearing too rude. "I should go."

"Sure," Hank said, clearly just humouring Booth's sudden desire to depart. "Uh, we're on for Sunday dinner, right?"

"Yeah," Booth said, nodding briefly at the question.

"OK," Hank replied, clearly stuck for anything else he could say now.

"See you Sunday," Booth said, before he turned and walked off, leaving Hank to stare after him, cursing his own difficulty at opening up.

There were times when he _really _wished he could relax more than he did; having someone to talk to about some of the crap in his life would make things easier, but he just found it so hard to find someone he felt comfortable confiding in...

* * *

As he burst through the door, his eyes automatically focusing on Captain Fuller as he stood behind his desk, Booth could barely restrain his rage.

People dying for a cause was one thing, but people dying because some moron screwed up, and then the _bastard_ refused to take responsibility for his mistake...

It was worse than the time he'd learned that Faith had tried to frame Buffy for killing Finch; at least Faith had the excuse of being a traumatised girl who didn't know how to cope with responsibility because she'd never had any before becoming the Slayer.

"You son of a bitch!" Booth yelled, grabbing Fuller and slamming him against the cabinet. "You covered up the whole thing!"

"Stand down, Agent Booth!" Fuller began to protest.

"They were innocent!" Booth countered, refusing to listen to the other man's words; never had he been more grateful not to be in the army any more when faced with scum like this who lied about the actions of others to redeem their own names.

"I don't know what you've heard, but my report clearly states -" Fuller tried to protest.

"We've taken your report apart!" Booth said, Angela's reconstruction and his own observations leaving no room for doubt in his mind as to what had really taken place during that dark day. "We have the _facts_, Captain; your squad blew away a family of innocents!"

"Kent!" Fuller yelled. "Kent did!"

Realising that the other man was at least willing to talk, Booth relaxed his grip and stepped back, staring silently at Fuller as he spoke.

"A kid so green he never should have been there in the first place," Fuller continued. "Do you know what that town was like? Our guys were being blown up by I.E.D.'s every day while we were trying to build hospitals and schools. A mistake was made. No one likes it. But you know what happens; if it got out what we did in that neighbourhood, the whole damn city would've exploded. What would you have done? Would you have let the city burn? This can't come out, Agent Booth. Don't make this any harder with an ugly story like this."

"I don't know what you're fighting for, Fuller, but it sure as hell wasn't my country," Booth said, pulling out his handcuffs as he glared at the other man; fine reasons didn't help when peoples' lives had been lost because of the mess he'd created. "We'll start with obstruction of justice."

"You have no jurisdiction on this base-" Fuller began with an angry leer.

"But we do, Captain," Colonel Shore said, the officer who'd shown him and Bones in walking in through the room's external door- he'd just waited outside to give Booth the chance to get an independent confession out of Fuller-, "and we're cooperating fully with Agent Booth. You will not disgrace us, Captain. You will be held accountable."

As he turned Fuller around to place the cuffs on him, Booth resisted the urge to slap the cuffs on with just a bit more force than he would have done in normal circumstances; the man might have disgraced the uniform and army to conceal a mistake, but Booth had to remind himself that assaulting the prisoner would just result in more trouble later.

* * *

"I never would have expected to see that," Bones said, staring after the Marshalls and the Kents as they walked away from the funeral, the two families sharing a moment in the memory of the loss of their loved ones.

"Well, people will always surprise you," Booth said, smiling slightly at the memory of some of the incidents he'd witnessed in the past; Doyle's heroic sacrifice to save the Listers, Xander taking a gambit to save Buffy's life- he still regretted not going to confront the Master himself, but after Buffy's rejection of her destiny he'd assumed that the Master was just going to be left where he was-, Cordelia's ever-increasing courage in Los Angeles...

"That hasn't always been my experience," Bones reflected, still staring after the family.

"I've... done some things," Booth said after a moment's pause; this might not be the best moment for what he had to say, but he doubted that he'd get a better one any time soon.

"I know," Bones said after a moment's silence, looking sympathetically at him.

"No," Booth said, forcing down the tremor in his voice at the memory. "No, you don't."

"But it's OK," Bones said.

"Not- not as a secret, it's not," Booth said, sitting down on one of the chairs that had been set up for the funeral; what he was about to say would be easier to say sitting down. "I have to be, uh, honest about myself... I-I have to be able to tell someone."

"You will in time, Booth," Bones said, as she sat down alongside him. "You will."

It was in the moments when she looked at him like that- that look of uncertain compassion, wanting to care for him without know how to really do it properly-, that made Booth wish that he could be more honest with this woman who'd lost so much at such a young age...

"I was sent to Kosovo," he said at last, picking a story that he could at least honestly tell her. "There was this... Serb General, Raddick, who led a unit who would go into villages and, you know, destroy 'em. Women, children, all- all killed because he wanted to ethnically purify his country. He'd done this twice before. I mean, we had facts, proof. 232 people just erased..."

He paused for a moment to collect himself- he'd killed more as Angelus, but never that many at one time; sometimes, humans really were the greatest monsters- before he continued, still fighting down the tears at the memory. "I was the sniper sent in to stop him. He was set to leave in a couple hours. It was his son's... son's birthday. A little boy maybe about six or seven. I can still hear the music from the party, you know? That song just playing in my head. Nobody knew where the shot came from, but, you know, they knew why it came. They said I saved over a hundred people. But, you know, that little boy... who didn't know who his father was, who... who just loved him... he saw him die, fall to the ground, right in front of him. That little boy, all covered in his daddy's blood, was changed forever..."

It was moments like that which had helped him realise that he needed to get out of his career as a sniper; using his skills to eliminate human enemies who operated on that kind of scale was important, but it just wasn't something he could bring himself to do...

"It's never just..." he began, sighing before he resolutely continued his sentence. "It's never just the one person who dies, Bones. Never. Never."

As Bones reached over to place a comforting hand on his forearm, Booth sniffed slightly; he wasn't sure what it was, but ever since he became human, he'd felt more of a freedom to cry when dealing with moments like this...

"You know... we all die a little bit, Bones," he said, his head lowered as he stared at where their hands met on his arm, grateful for whatever awkward comfort she had to provide. "With each shot, we all die a little."

It was a complicated statement, but it was also true; you couldn't kill someone without that action affecting others beyond those who had died, and he knew the truth of that statement in _so _many ways...


	23. The Woman in Limbo

Disclaimer: I own neither Angel or anything associated with him, and "Bones" is equally out of my reach control-wise

Feedback: Appreciated

Angel of the Bones

As he walked into the Angelator room, Booth wondered if he should feel amused or exasperated at Bones's inability to get ready; it might be annoying that she would take this long to get ready for court due to work, but at the same time, it was one of those little quirks that just made her Bones rather than anyone else.

"Any of you seen Bones?" he asked, looking over at the others. "We're due in court, like- Hello- now."

His voice trailed off as he noted the expressions on Zach, Angela and Goodman's faces as they stood around the Angelator; they might be confused about something, but they were clearly also very concerned about it. "What?"

"This totally freaked her out," Angela said, tapping a few controls on the Angelator to bring up the semi-transparent image of-

Booth's blood ran cold.

He _knew _that woman.

He might have only seen her photograph, but it was a photograph he'd studied as much as possible once Bones had officially asked him to look into the case, his time divided between studying their files and following up a few old leads; with all that to take into account, it was unlikely he'd ever forget it.

He barely registered Zach's 'input' as he picked up his phone and dialled a number that would at least deal with the obvious complications caused by this discovery; there wasn't anything that Zach could contribute to this situation that would be relevant right now, and Bones needed to focus before she'd be good for anything else.

"Yeah," he said, responding to the questions on the other end of the line without even fully registering what the person on the other end was saying; there were more important matters to worry about right now than the fine details of a conversation where he already knew exactly what he was going to say to the person on the other end. "You're gonna want to take Dr. Brennan off the witness list today... No... She can't make it into court. Thanks."

"Alright," Angela said, looking uncertainly at him, "what's going on?"

"That," Booth said, indicating the image as he terminated the phone call, "is Christine Brennan."

"Good God," Goodman said, staring at the image being projected in front of him.

"You just found Bones's mother," Booth said, looking over at Zach in particular to ensure that he understood what they had just done.

This might be the first significant progress that anyone had made in the case of Matthew and Christine's mysterious disappearance almost two decades ago- at least now they knew where _one _of the two was-, but there was no denying that it sucked...

It was like a more realistic version of what had happened with him and Connor after Holtz stole him, really; seeing Connor again after he'd accepted that he would never be able to recover his son had been a surprise, but the fact that he'd aged so quickly in such a short amount of time had been the real shock.

For Bones, even if she'd probably been expecting to find her parents' bodies for years, nothing could realistically prepare you for the moment when you actually definitively learned that your mother was dead, and had probably been that way for years judging by the fact that Christine didn't seem that much older than the last photograph he'd been shown of her.

Without waiting to see what else anyone had to say about this discovery, Booth turned and headed for Bones's office, walking through the door to find his partner sitting at her desk staring at a small piece of blackened metal attached to what looked like a strip of brown leather in her hand, various plastic bags lying on the desk in front of her that must have come from the brown envelope off to the side.

"I have to miss court," Bones said, not even looking up at him as she stared at the object in her hand.

"I know," Booth said, briefly contemplating and discarding the idea of telling her that he'd already made the relevant arrangements to accommodate that request; there was no point going into that kind of detail right now.

"I remember this belt buckle," Bones said, still staring at the object in her hand. "I borrowed it without asking first day of high school. My father had it specially made for my mother because she loved dolphins."

"Bones..." Booth said, looking sympathetically at his partner, wishing that he had more to offer than inadequate regrets; he knew from experience that there were some wounds you never really recovered from. "I'm sorry."

"I always knew that, for my parents to disappear like that," Bones said, pausing briefly before she continued to speak as she turned to face him, "they... they had to be dead. I thought that when it was confirmed, I'd feel relief, but-"

"It's still bad news," Booth said.

He knew how she felt; even after he'd regained his memory of Angelus's sins, a part of him had spent some time after he'd 'woken up' in that gypsy camp with his soul restored to him that everything he remembered was just a disturbing and overly-detailed dream from a serious drinking binge, before he'd found himself facing the realities of the world that now existed around him as evidence that time had passed between his encounter in the alley and the moment in the camp...

"You have the file, Zack?" Bones asked, prompting Booth to turn around and see Zack standing in the door of Bones's office, looking awkwardly at his teacher.

"Jane Doe, Number 129-0998," Zack said, handing Bones what had to be her mother's file.

"Where was she found?" Bones asked, her voice back under control once again.

"Bones, I-" Booth began.

"What does it say?" Bones said, still staring intently at Zack; evidently that brief earlier breakdown was all that she would allow herself.

"'In September of 1998'," Zack read from the file, "'a grave-digging crew at the Sunset Memory Cemetery in Salisbury, Pennsylvania, uncovered human remains in a completely advanced stage of decomposition'."

"Is it from a grave?" Booth asked.

"No," Zack replied. "It appears that somebody just dug a hole at the edge of the cemetery and... plopped the body in there."

"Zack..." Booth said, glaring at the younger man as Bones looked back at the table with a slight tremor in her expression that was almost certainly all that she'd allow herself to show.

Even if this wasn't Bones's mother that they were talking about right now, there was no reason to be so blunt about the way someone had so cold-bloodedly disposed of a woman's body; the fact that it _was_ Bones's mother just made it more important that he recognise the emotional implications of what he was saying.

"Sorry," Zack said, before he turned his attention back to the file and began to scan through the pages in his hands. "The local coroner found no obvious evidence of foul play and sent the remains, a few artefacts and soil samples to the Jeffersonian, hoping we could identify her. Technically, your mother's been at the Jeffersonian as long as you have."

"Zack," Booth said, glaring at the young man; his casual delivery of such personal information wasn't doing anything to help Bones deal with this latest bombshell that she was never going to see her mother again.

"Sorry," Zack said, his voice lower before he continued speaking at a normal volume. "But they both got here in 1998."

"Doctor Brennan," Goodman said as he entered the office, looking sympathetically at her. "Miss Montenegro has volunteered to drive you home."

"Temperance," Booth said, knowing without needing to think about it that this was one of those times when it would be best to use her name. "Go home."

There wasn't much that he could do in this kind of situation, but he could make sure that she had a chance to process it in private before they dived back into the investigation...

* * *

"Are we on the look-out for anything in particular?" one of the FBI techs asked as Booth took in the team that had been assembled to look at the Brennans' abandoned car amid the chaos of the FBI garage.

"Treat it like a brand new crime scene," Booth said; if they were re-opening the case, they were going to do it properly. "Full workup. Tear through the whole car, treat it, and then go through it with a fine-tooth comb."

"That's our old car, all right," Russ said, looking at the battered blue vehicle with a wistful expression as the technicians began to remove the boot cover from the back.

"The name of my school is scraped off; Woodside Elementary," Bones said, noting a yellow sticker with red writing on it on the back of the car before she walked over to him as he stood at a nearby table. "They said they didn't find anything in the car."

"There was a bloodstain, front seat, passenger side," Booth said, scanning over a file he'd received earlier before he turned to address the crew, giving a brief whistle to attract their attention. "Guys! Everybody! I need the space! Now!"

"What, now?" one of the technicians asked, looking up from the passenger side of the car in surprise.

"Yeah, now," Booth replied, the stare on his face making it clear that he wasn't kidding.

"Take five, everybody," the technician said, calling over to the others before the group began to walk away, leaving Booth alone by the car with the Brennans.

"Twice in two days," Bones said, looking curiously at Booth.

"I had NCIC database check for a married couple who disappeared in 1978," Booth said, already knowing that there was no way Bones would take what he was about to tell her well but knowing that he had to as he pulled out the mug shots and passed the photographs to Bones. "Meet Max and Ruth Keenan."

"That's Mom and Dad all right," Russ said, as he looked at the photos from over his sister's shoulder.

"The NCIC database?" Bones said, looking at Booth in shocked confusion. "That's... that's criminals. My parents were on the list of federal offenders?"

"How do you like that?" Russ said, in a casual tone that Booth personally felt was highly inappropriate given the currently-tense situation. "I guess a criminal nature runs in the family."

"You were seven years old, Russ," Bones said, picking up a picture of herself and Russ as she glared at him. "Old enough to remember. What- what is your real name? What is _my _real name?"

"Bones, it's right here in the file-" Booth began, seizing on a chance to save Russ from having to answer that question and confirming what Bones had just suddenly decided was true.

"No!" Bones said, her tone brokering no room for argument before she focused her glare back on Russ. "No! I want him to tell me! What is my real name, Russ?"

As Russ looked awkwardly around the garage, Booth briefly thought about asking Bones to calm down, but quickly scratched that as a possible course of action; the guy had had plenty of opportunities to tell Bones about this kind of information of his own accord, and he hadn't done it.

Maybe this situation wasn't fitting punishment for what he'd done, but it was more than he deserved for keeping such a big secret and potentially crucial information to himself for so long.

"My name was Kyle," Russ said at last, looking solemnly at his sister. "Your name was Joy."

"You are not my brother," Bones said, her voice cold with rage before she slapped the other man.

"Bones-" Booth said, even if he had no idea what he was going to say next given that he at least partly agreed with her response.

"No!" Bones said, glaring between the two men. "He lied about that! What else are you lying about? What else are you not telling us?"

With that said, Bones stormed out of the garage, leaving Russ to look silently at the floor while Booth simply stared at the file out of a lack of anything to say to his partner's brother.

* * *

"I was the FBI liaison on a bank robbery task force, working out of Cincinnati in the mid-to-late seventies," Special Agent Warner explained as she sat in Booth's office opposite himself and the Brennan siblings- Booth wasn't going to consider them the 'Keenan' siblings; they'd been the Brennan's for far longer-, walking around his desk before she sat down in a chair opposite the siblings. "Secret Service, State Police, ATF- All of us after a pretty bad bunch of armed robbers working Ohio, Kentucky, Iowa... You know, excuse me; am I to understand that I'm addressing the family of one of these robbers?"

"Max and Ruth Keenan's children," Booth said; they weren't doing anyone any favours by trying to side-step that issue.

"Max and Ruth, yeah," Warner said after a moment's awkward silence, smiling slightly at the memory. "They never really belonged in that crew."

"Why?" Bones asked, her voice a simple tone that gave no sign how she might feel about the implications of that last statement.

"They worked smart," Warner explained as she opened her file. "Specialized in safe deposit boxes. No guns. They'd either con their way in or case out the place, break back in on the weekend. Took their time. We never got a handle on the size of their scores."

"Why?" Russ asked.

"Well, people keep jewellery and cash in safety deposit boxes..." Warner explained.

"And a lot of stuff they don't want to report stolen," Booth added, recalling some of the things he'd left in storage deposit boxes over the years when he was Angel; so long as you remembered the relevant information, he could leave anything in those things and come back to get them after the original staff had moved on, saving him the difficulty of explaining why he didn't age.

"None of us understood why stand-up criminals, like Max and Ruth, would join the Midwest strong arm crew," Warner continued as she studied the file again. "Links to white supremacists, real dedication to firearms and violence. A job in Dayton went really bad. Two innocent bystanders were killed. One state trooper, seven wounded."

"When was that?" Booth asked, sitting behind his desk; the way this conversation looked to be going, it would be best to remind Warner which of them had the authority in this particular investigation.

"July 4th, 1978," Warner said. For a moment, Booth wondered where he'd been at that point in his life, but dismissed it as irrelevant; at that particular point in his existence, he'd pretty much just been operating on the outskirts of humanity since that mess with the doughnut store clerk, stepping in if something happened a few feet away from him but otherwise just lying around waiting to find something small to wander over to him so that he could drink it.

"Never caught 'em?" Russ asked.

"Not us, no," Warner replied. "A few years later, one of them turned state's evidence for an FBI agent out of... Louisville; sent the rest to jail. My understanding is they're all dead."

"Our parents were bank robbers... who morphed into a high school science teacher and a bookkeeper?" Russ said, looking at Agent Warner in obvious confusion at what they'd just learned.

"Their particular brand of safety deposit break-ins stopped," Warner responded. "At the time, I figured the strong-arm crew killed them for their cut."

Booth was almost relieved when the technician came into the office to inform him that they had found blood in the car; the anomaly of blood from two separate people was an obvious additional complication, but at least it was a complication that they could try and figure out the answers to right now.

Even if they could theorise about what had prompted Max and Ruth to become Matthew and Christine, the only way they could know for _sure _what had happened with the evidence available to them was to talk to Max/Matthew, and that was if he was still alive; at least the blood might give them someone else to talk to...

* * *

"If you keep bringing Chinese food in the middle of the night, we're both going to get fat," Bones said as they sat in her apartment later that night, putting her chopsticks down as she spoke.

"I know what you've been thinking," Booth said, lying comfortably back on her couch as he discarded his fortune from the fortune cookie; after getting his Shanshu, as far as he was concerned, anything else that happened to him was nothing.

"I doubt it," Bones replied, looking back at him with a dejected stare.

"You've been thinking that your family is made up of liars and criminals," Booth said; it might not be the same thing, but he'd felt the same way when he'd first regained his soul and realised that the only people he actually knew- even if they'd known Angelus rather than him, his mind hadn't adjusted enough to make that kind of distinction yet- were psychotic murderers who killed for fun. "And that makes you feel lonely. There's a story here we don't know yet."

"Like what?" Bones asked.

"Bones," Booth said- why did she seem to miss the obvious at times?-, "'don't know' means it's a mystery."

"What were your parents like?" Bones asked, looking more directly at him.

"My parents?" Booth said, laughing awkwardly to cover his inner panic at such a question; even if he 'remembered' living with Booth's parents, whenever anyone asked him about them his mind automatically went to Liam's mother and father rather than Booth's, and it took him a moment to recall the fine details of the parents he should be talking about.

"My dad, he..." he continued, hoping that Bones didn't find anything off about his slightly slow response, "He drove thuds and phantoms in Vietnam- those are fighter jets-; after that, he was a barber in Philadelphia, and my mom, she wrote jingles for a local advertising agency."

"So they didn't go out at night after you were asleep and rob banks?" Bones asked.

"Listen, Bones," Booth said, stuck for anything else to say to that comment. "You know, parents... they have secret lives; if they didn't, they wouldn't be parents."

He felt the inadequacy of that statement as soon as he'd said it; how could he honestly claim that parents had secrets when, in his experience, children were the ones who kept secrets from their parents rather than the other way around? Back in Sunnydale, Oz was the only person being anything close to regularly honest with his family, and that was only because his cousin had already been 'infected' with the werewolf gene (Actually, now that Booth thought about it, what _had _Oz's parents known about his daily life beyond that he went to the library on the full moon to get locked away to stop him hurting anyone?); Buffy and Fred had only told their parents about their lives when circumstances demanded it, Giles and Wesley had been raised in this world, Gunn never really mentioned his parents- most of the time Angel assumed that Gunn had gotten involved in the vampire-hunting lifestyle after vampires killed the rest of his family-, and everyone else just seemed content to leave their families behind after moving on from Sunnydale.

"It's a little late for Chinese, isn't it?" he said, stuck for anything else he could say at this point that wouldn't be either a lie or more of the truth than he could safely reveal. "Thanks for the meal; see you tomorrow."

* * *

"They found your blood in the car," Bones said as the two of them followed Vince McVicker into his barn, the forensic anthropologist maintaining her usual cool resolve despite the fact that they were facing a man who may have very well played a part in whatever happened to her parents.

"You hurt lots of people, Vince," Booth said. "Bashed in their heads..."

"Well, they never proved that, or I wouldn't be in Witness Protection," McVicker said, looking back at Booth with the same smug little smile that had always made Booth want to punch Lindsey in the face.

"Yeah, we know how it works, Vince," Booth said, staring back at the other man; after facing the likes of the Beast and Hamilton, an aging pig farmer was almost boring. "You rat out your crew, everybody loses interest in a few old murders..."

"My mother was hit on the head," Bones said, folding her arms as she stared at him.

"Yeah, I know; I was there," McVicker said, pulling his hair back to reveal a scar on his forehead. "Thirty-two stitches."

"She fought back, huh?" Booth said, tensing slightly as he spoke; nobody would reveal something like that unless there was something else going on here...

"Ruthie fought back alright," McVicker said, a slightly grim expression on his face that Booth knew meant that they weren't going to like what he was about to say, "but not against me."

"Then against whom?" Bones asked.

"Your father," McVicker replied, in a manner that could have indicated regret if Booth wasn't already resolved to take anything this guy had to tell them with a whole shaker of salt.

"Why did he attack you?" Booth asked, hoping that he wasn't about to hear the answer he was partly expecting and really didn't want to hear; things were crap enough for Bones without this guy coming out with _that_...

"Think about it a second, all right?" McVicker said, a slight smile on his face that Booth automatically hated almost more than any grin he'd received from Lindsey.

"You and my... my mother?" Bones said incredulously.

"Me and Ruthie had run off together," McVicker explained. "Max caught us pulling into a motel outside of Champaign, Illinois. We were nuts about each other, Ruthie and me; crazy in love-"

"OK, let's just skip that part, OK?" Booth said, holding up a warning hand; he didn't need to have known Bones for a year to see how hard she was taking this latest discovery.

"Well, he hit Ruthie first," McVicker said, after a moment's hesitation that could have been reluctance to remember such a painful memory or could have been a man on the spot trying to come up with a story; Booth didn't know enough about the people involved to know which was true in this situation yet.

"With what?" Bones asked, a tremor in her voice that Booth had heard far too much for his liking since this case began.

"Tire iron," McVicker said. "Hit my arm, caught me a roundhouse to the head. Lights out, baby. I came to, Ruthie and Max were gone. Never saw neither of them again. You ask me, Max killed Ruthie and buried her somewhere and vanished. Our plan, once we set up- most likely in Florida- was to bring you down. Your father is a hard man, Joy."

If it wasn't for the fact that he had no way of knowing whether the guy was telling the truth or lying through his teeth, Booth would have punched him in the face just for saying that.

Throughout all the crap discoveries they'd been making over the last few days, one of the few things Bones had been able to hold on to was the knowledge that her parents had loved each other no matter what they called themselves, and now this guy came out and claimed...

"My name is Brennan," Bones said, her voice shaking as she clearly fought for some kind of emotional control after this last revelation. "I'm Doctor... I'm Doctor Temperance Brennan."

As McVicker walked out of the barn, Booth immediately scratched one notch in the 'against' column for the pig-farmer's story- there was no way that a man who'd been 'crazy in love' with a woman would be _that _dismissive of her daughter-, but as Bones continued to struggle through her tears to recite her various qualifications and area of expertise, Booth knew that he was needed here more than anywhere else.

"I know who you are," he said, gathering his partner into his arms, focusing only on what she needed to hear at this point rather than worrying about anything that McVicker had claimed. "Hey, I know. It's OK... it's going to be OK..."

He'd gone through his fair share of identity crises in the past, what with all the times he'd lost his soul, his memory, or his purpose, and right now, he knew that the one thing Bones needed was someone who knew who she was.

Everything else could be dealt with later; right now, all that mattered was that Bones knew that someone else believed in her as she was now, regardless of what anyone else tried to tell her about who she should or shouldn't be.

* * *

"Anybody thirsty?" Bones asked as they walked into her apartment later, Bones now visibly more relaxed than she had been earlier; they might still not know what had happened to her father, but at least they'd confirmed that her mother hadn't been killed for having an affair, and been able to bring in her mother's killer, even if he still wasn't talking about what happened to the other part of her missing family tree.

"Is it too early for beer?" Russ asked.

"Ah, I gotta go, you know, I'm picking up Parker for the weekend..." Booth began, before his eyes fell on what could only be a manuscript lying on the table in front of him and he quickly changed his mind; if he could at least take a _look _at the book, that might be enough. "Yeah, I'll take one."

"You have a boy?" Russ asked.

"Yeah," Booth said, lifting up the first page of the manuscript, only to halt as he took in the words written on the second page.

_This book is to my partner and friend, Special Agent Seeley Booth_.

It wasn't something that he'd ever considered, but, in a strange way, this simple twelve-word dedication was the most touching thing that anyone had said or done for him for ages.

The thought that someone like Bones- smart to an almost ridiculous degree, but also cut off from human contact to a point that made him look social back when he was Angel- thought that he was worth dedicating a book to...

"The woman I'm seeing," Russ said, his voice bringing Booth's mind back to the present, "she's got, uh, two daughters."

"Nice," Booth said, smiling as he put the page down and looked over at Bones, who was coming back with two beers in her hands. "Girls are nice."

As he took the beer Bones offered him, he briefly flashed back to the last time he'd said those words- feigning drunkenness in a Los Angeles bar to catch some vampires off-guard-, and he definitely preferred the situation he found himself in right now, drinking with his partner and her brother in their apartment after a case.

He'd come so far since those dark decades waiting for rats in an alleyway...

"To us," he said, raising the offered beer in a toast.

"Whoever the hell we are," Russ said.

"To what we're becoming," Bones concluded, smiling warmly at her brother as they clinked bottles together and took a sip, before Bones turned around to press a button on her phone.

"_New message recorded today_," the familiar female answering-machine voice said. "_Three p.m._."

"_Temperance_?" an unfamiliar male voice said, prompting Booth to cease his contemplative study of the bottle in his hands and look back at his partner. "_You have to stop looking. Y-You have to stop looking for me right now. This is bigger and worse than you know. Please stop now_."

"Who's that?" Booth asked, looking at the shocked expression on the face of the siblings standing around him.

"That was my father," Bones said, her shock obvious as she stared at him.

They may have solved this case, but there was clearly a lot more that their team would need to figure out before everything made sense...


	24. The Titan on the Tracks

Disclaimer: I own neither Angel or anything associated with him, and "Bones" is equally out of my reach control-wise

Feedback: Appreciated

Angel of the Bones

As he stepped out of the car, Booth almost had to shudder at the sight of the damaged train and car in front of him; even after all the sights he'd seen as a vampire, he still wasn't used to seeing such large-scale destruction, given that so many demons and enemies from that point in his life had tended to focus on only causing smaller-scale damage to avoid attracting the wrong kind of attention (The Beast and Jasmine's attacks had been an obvious exception, and he didn't count what happened after the fight against the Black Thorn as nobody remembered that any more).

Witnessing such public damage like this... no matter how he might find it easier to focus on more individual efforts, it still wasn't exactly easy for him.

"Got passenger cars on the tracks, one on the side," Booth said, looking around as firefighters and paramedics scrambled to do their jobs and find any survivors of this horrible accident (He wouldn't allow himself to become jaded; the day he started assuming that every horrible thing he encountered had to have happened on purpose was the day he'd quit). "There's gonna be fatalities."

"Stan!" a voice said, prompting Booth to slightly shift his pace to walk towards the direction of the voice in question, as a dark-haired woman in a blue jumpsuit walked out from under the train clutching a severed forearm in her hand. "I need some gauze. Danny? You don't find the owner of this in the next ten minutes, he'll bleed to death. Starting... now."

Looking up as she set the arm's watch for the aforementioned time limit, Doctor Camille Saroyan walked up to him with a smile. "Seeley."

"Camille," Booth replied, continuing their usual 'running gag' (He couldn't even remember how this had actually started, although he wasn't sure if that absence was due to a flaw in the spell that created Seeley Booth's past- they'd created an entire background in a relatively short amount of time; some holes were to be expected-, or just natural memory loss after so long since the original event).

"Don't call me Camille," Cam replied.

"Don't call me Seeley," Booth countered, before he indicated the woman by his side; he knew that Cam had at least some professional knowledge of his partner, but he wouldn't presume any prior knowledge of Cam on Bones's part given his partner's usual focus on immediately relevant facts and Cam's greater expertise in a different profession. "Doctor Brennan, Doctor Saroyan; you two know each other, huh?"

"No," Bones replied, just as Cam confirmed the relationship with the same word.

"Uh-oh," Booth said, as another thought occurred to her; since Bones had been away since their last case together trying to get re-acquainted with her brother, she probably wasn't aware of the recent changes back at the lab...

"Doctor Brennan," Cam continued, apparently unconcerned about what had prompted Booth's 'uh-oh'. "I'd like you to check out the automobile this train hit. It's probably what caused the derailment."

"Accidental?" Booth asked.

"NTSB guy says the train struck the car at least 200 yards from the nearest access," Cam said.

"Deliberate," Booth concluded, privately cursing at this turn of events as another man began to bandage the arm Cam was holding in her hands.

"Eight minutes, Steve!" Cam called over her shoulder, before she turned to look at the two of them again. "Probably suicide. Why are you still here, Doctor Brennan?"

"Because I'm not a coroner, and I don't work for you?" Bones replied.

"You've got that half right," Cam said, leaving Bones to look at Booth for an explanation that Booth definitely wasn't looking forward to giving...

"Got him, Cam!" another voice called from somewhere off to the side. "Still breathin'!"

"Thanks, Steve," Cam said, placing the severed arm on a passing gurney that presumably carried the arm's original owner. "All right, every survivor is one less person for me to autopsy."

As she looked at Booth, Cam smiled in a manner that put Booth momentarily in mind of Cordelia when she was about to make a flirtatious comment. "You look good out of your suit, Seeley. But then, you always did."

"Yeah, that's..." Booth said, uncertain what he could really say in this situation as Cam turned to walk away; his fake memories might be detailed, but they were still often lost amid the chaos of his own, real past unless he had time to concentrate on them, which he didn't have time to do right now and wasn't certain if he wanted to analyse anyway. "Great to have you back in DC, Camille."

"One minute she's holding a severed arm, the next, she's hitting on you," Bones said, smiling briefly at him as she moved towards the burnt-out car that had previously been on the tracks.

"No, she wasn't hitting on me," Booth corrected (Another reason he didn't want to explore those relationships in his false memories too closely; the Powers might have crafted Booth's past to make him at least psychologically similar to Angel, but there were still a few fine details that he was uncomfortable exploring regarding his choice in relationships). "And you know what? She is your boss, Bones."

"What?" Bones said, briefly looking in her bag for gloves as they walked towards the car. "Goodman's my boss."

At least that response confirmed what Booth had already suspected, but he was left very grateful at the distraction offered when Bones briefly talked with a firefighter who was putting out the last flames on the damaged car; it was a brief reprieve, but it was a reprieve from what he had a feeling was going to be an awkward conversation, as well as giving him the chance to work out the best way to say what he was about to say.

"You know," he said, as Bones leaned into the car from the front passenger seat, examining the remains with a flashlight, "while you were away, Goodman decided that there should be a head of forensics at the Jeffersonian. Never occurred to you to check in, huh?"

"Why didn't Goodman hire me?" Bones asked, even as her attention focused on the car in front of her.

"My guess?" Booth said; Bones appreciated direct responses, so that was what she'd get right now. "People skills."

"I have people skills," Bones replied, still focused on the burnt-out car.

"Oh, all right," Booth said, indicating the fireman she'd addressed earlier as he recognised the man's face (He might be better at this than Bones, but keeping track of all the people he met as Booth wasn't exactly easy). "That firefighter's name is Nelson, and it's at least the fourth time that you've met him. Odds are, Cam knows his kids' names after meeting him once."

"A lot of jewellery," Bones said; if it wasn't for the fact that she had replied to him earlier, Booth would have wondered if she was even aware that he was talking to her. "Male. Thigh bones suggests he was tall. I.D. bracelet. It's good quality gold, slightly melted, too melted for a regular car fire. Do you see a skull?"

"Hey, Bones, I'm not looking for a skull," Booth said; he'd cut off a few demon heads in his life as Angel, but he _really _didn't want to get into the habit of picking up body-parts in this kind of condition unless he had to.

"Burn damage to the body is more intense than I'd expect from a car fire, even if the fuel tank ruptured and was absolutely full at the time of impact," Bones commented.

"Do you see anything on this car that isn't ruptured?" Booth pointed out.

"Booth!" Cam called, hurrying over to talk to him. "Three deaths in the first class car."

"Oh, homicide!" Booth said, allowing himself a brief- albeit morbid- smile at the news. "That makes it my case."

"One of them's a senator," Cam added.

"That makes a difference?" Bones asked, pulling back from the car to look at him more directly.

"Facts of life, Bones," Booth said, as he headed off to investigate the bodies Cam had discovered, leaving Bones to examine the car until more professional investigators arrived.

It might not be a fact of life he liked, but at least the death of a senator meant that more people would be invested in finding a solution to this case rather than trying to sweep it under the rug, or just give it a relatively cursory go-over...

* * *

"Agent Booth," Rick Turco said as he sat opposite Booth and Brennan in the diner- a part of Booth hated to taint this place where they came to relax by directly associating it with an investigation, but it allowed for a more informal atmosphere that could be important when dealing with those he couldn't officially arrest yet-, his tone casual as he addressed the two of them, "I'm a private investigator; my greatest asset is my discretion."

"Brianna Lynch already told us that you worked for her husband, Mr Turco," Bones said.

"Well, Mrs Lynch is welcome to say whatever she likes," Turco said, looking casually at his food.

"You know the client confidentiality routine no longer exists when the client is dead," Booth pointed out, leaning contemplatively on his right arm as he looked at the other man.

"That's not the assurance I give my very demanding, very high-profile clients," Turco said solemnly. "Till death do us not part."

There were times when Booth could not believe the situational ethics of some people; when did client confidentiality become this important to someone who was willing to poke around in someone's dirty laundry- metaphorically and sometimes physically- after everything else they were doing to or for their clients...?

"Yeah?" he said, looking resolutely at Turco; if this guy was going to drag down the standards of what he'd once done for a living in his previous life, he was going to ensure that the guy faced up to what he'd done in the past. "How would your very demanding, very high-profile clients feel if they find out you procured heroin for Warren Lynch?"

"What?" Turco asked, his smile faltering at this new news.

"Warren Lynch was a heroin addict," Bones clarified.

"I open up a drug investigation on you, Mr. Turco, and once the press gets wind of that, your high-profile clients find some other unprincipled Mr. Fix-It," Booth said, enjoying the shock on Turco's face at that news as he chewed on a fry; he might not be a private investigator any more himself, but the thought of someone abusing the role to help people cover up their own indiscretions and screw-ups just made him sick...

"Warren Lynch was a junkie?" Turco said, with what Booth was surprised to note was suspiciously genuine shock. "What's your evidence?"

"Bones?" Booth asked, looking over at his partner as she handed a file to Turco.

"Well..." Turco said, studying the file's contents for a few moments- Booth made a mental note to talk with Bones once he saw the contents of the file; he doubted that anyone he'd met who wasn't Bones, Willow or Fred could understand that paperwork-, "so, what does all of this mean?"

"Sum it all up for me, Bones," Booth said; he'd talk to her about simplifying the evidence she showed to clients later.

"Warren Lynch suffered declining bone mass, due to long-term abuse of his hypothalamic pituitary gonadal axis," Bones said, once again turning what should be a simple explanation into an excessively complicated one.

"Nothing says 'junkie' like your gonad's axis, Ricky," he said, trying to sound like he had a clear idea what Bones was saying even as he knew he'd got the name wrong; if Buff could bluff her way through the names of demons, he could pretend to follow Bones's science stuff.

"I had no idea," Turco said, his voice low as he looked at them, clearly in shock at this latest news. "I certainly never procured any heroin for him."

"Warren Lynch sure wasn't trolling for ten dollar hits in Lincoln Heights," Booth pointed out.

"Well, Agent Booth, you know my rep," Turco said, smiling at him in a manner that was probably meant to make him appear 'buddy-buddy' but just made Booth more suspicious. "I'm a sin eater. I make problems go away."

"You mean like when Lynch's wife found out he was sleeping with other women?" Bones asked.

"All right, anything I say, strictest confidence, correct?" Turco said, waiting for Booth and Bones to respond before he continued speaking. "Warren Lynch brought me in to deal with a blackmailer."

"Lynch was being blackmailed?" Booth asked, leaning back in his chair as he looked at Turco.

"By one of his girlfriends?" Bones asked.

"That would be my assumption, yes," Turco confirmed. "I'd paid them off before, but this was a much bigger deal, more serious. Had to be the heroin, right?"

"Let it play out," Booth said, projecting an appearance of understanding despite his distaste for the concept of what they were discussing.

"I negotiated the payment from a mill to a quarter million, paid 'em off, that was three days ago," Turco continued.

"How?" Booth asked.

"Dead drop at Rock Creek Park," Turco replied.

"And you have no idea who it was," Booth concluded.

"No," Turco confirmed with a brief shake of the head. "I got a phone call. When I traced it back, it dead ended on a stolen cell phone."

Exchanging glances with Bones, Booth smiled slightly at his partner.

This meeting may have left them with relatively limited information, but at least they were finding more evidence to support the idea that someone had deliberately killed Lynch, rather than the heroin thing being an unrelated but disturbing 'extra' in this situation...

* * *

"Two people forced the corpse into the jacket; that's excellent work," Cam said, studying the information that Booth had managed to assemble as the two of them stood in the autopsy bay before she indicated the image on the photograph that Angela had managed to recover. "Who's that?"

"I think it's Rick Turco," Booth replied.

"Means Turco's probably the last person who saw Lynch before he fell off the radar," Cam said.

"Of course," Booth added, "Angela and Zack are scared that this counts as an experiment and you're going to fire them."

"Ah!" Cam said with a smile. "I am getting through."

"Why did you take this job, Camille?" Booth asked; in this rare moment when they were both alone, it was the best chance he was going to get to find out the answer the question that had been bugging him for a while now.

"Why shouldn't I, Seeley?" Cam replied.

"Because it's basically herding cats, and you're a dog person," Booth clarified.

"Dogs herd cats," Cam responded.

"Dogs don't do that," Booth said; he might have never owned a dog himself, but he'd dealt with enough demons to know how animal nature worked.

"Chase 'em up trees, whatever," Cam said dismissively.

"Seriously, Cam," Booth said, smiling at her brief joke before he focused the conversation back on what mattered, "why did you take this job?"

"These," Cam said, picking up a metal implement from a nearby table, "are Are titanium rib-clippers from Germany. My last job? Used bolt cutters from Home Depot. These are much, much nicer. This autopsy table? Has downdraft ventilation. No rotting corpse smell, Seeley. My last table didn't even have a drain. Think about that a second. Leaky corpse, no drain."

"So you took this job for better equipment," Booth concluded; for a moment, he was reminded of his team's old reasons for taking control of Wolfram & Hart, save for the fact that there was no spiritual compromises being made here.

"I've spent my whole professional life in basement rooms with no windows," Cam said

"Now I'm in the Jeffersonian Institute... what?" she finished, noting the intense stare he was directing at her.

"Gotta ask," Booth said with a shrug.

"You so do not," Cam replied.

"Did you take this job because of...?" Booth asked, indicating himself; he might not be entirely sure how _he _felt about Cam given that all his memories of their relationship had been artificially added to his memory, but that didn't mean he could really expect to know how _she _would feel about things.

"God, the ego!" Cam said, laughing.

"Say it," Booth said, keeping his expression neutral as he avoided rising to the potential jab of her words; he didn't seriously think the scenario he'd proposed was the case, but it was best to be sure.

"Nothing to do with you," Cam confirmed.

"I need Bones this afternoon," Booth said, changing the subject to something less potentially embarrassing.

"OK," Cam said with a speculative expression on her face.

"It's about her mother's murder and her father's disappearance," Booth clarified before he turned to leave the room.

"Plus, she dedicated her book to you, so..." Cam began.

"It's a legitimate case, Cam," Booth interjected, halting his departure to point firmly at her.

"I know," Cam said. "I read the file."

Smiling in relief at the conclusion to that particular topic of discussion, Booth turned around to leave the lab, only to be halted when Cam asked an unexpected question. "Why hasn't she confronted me?"

"About what?" Booth asked as he turned back; 'she' was obviously Bones, but he had no idea what Cam was talking about.

"About me being parachuted in over her head," Cam clarified. "Finds me intimidating, right?"

Booth allowed himself a brief laugh at that suggestion; after so long repressing his emotions as Angel, one thing that he particularly liked about being Booth was the freedom to take the chance to express himself, the additional memories of Booth making it far easier for him to relax where Angel had been uncertain.

"Hey, I intimidate people," Cam said, smiling with a slightly indignant manner.

"Yeah... Bones doesn't intimidate," Booth said, still grinning at the suggestion as he walked over to stand in front of Cam.

"Then... what?" Cam asked.

"Have you seen the way she stares at human remains before she makes a decision?" Booth asked.

"Yes," Cam confirmed.

"You're human remains, and... she hasn't made a decision yet," Booth finished

"How do I help her make the right decision?" Cam asked, as he turned towards the door again.

"Go for the truth," Booth answered, deciding to avoid the implications of the 'right decision' statement until later; it was still too early to determine whether Cam was the right person for this job or not. "You know, take care of her people. Oh, and I like the whole intimidation thing; I think it's cute."

* * *

"How am I going to tell Russ that our father ordered the death of another human being?" Bones asked, as the two of them drove away from the prison where they'd just spoken with the murderer of Vince McVicker, an expression of quiet desolation on his partner's face.

"If he did that- and I'm not saying it happened that way-," Booth said, trying to sound as reassuring as he could when faced with a situation where he agreed with the motives behind the action, "then your father took down the man who murdered his wife."

"Good people don't have other people murdered," Bones said, with a tragic certainty in her tone as though she was refusing to believe his suggestion. "Good people don't even know how."

The simplicity of that statement almost made Booth more uncomfortable than anything else she might have said.

He might not have been the best person possible as Angel or Booth- his mistakes as Liam were so long ago that they didn't count, and he _definitely _didn't count anything he'd done as Angelus as a sin as it wasn't him-, but he liked to think that he'd been a good man whatever other faults he might have had; the idea that Bones could automatically dismiss him as a good person- even if unintentionally- because he'd had to kill people...

"Well..." he said, stuck for anything else he could say in this situation and wanting to avoid that particular issue until a better time. "Your father buried your mother in a pair of new shoes in a cemetery, with her dolphin belt buckle that reminded her of you because you both loved dolphins."

"That does not make him a good man," Bones said, looking at him in confusion.

"People can be more than one thing," Booth said, looking reassuringly at her before he changed the subject to a more positive note. "We were a dead end! All right, we know that your father got to Mitchell Downs, persuaded him to kill McVicker. We find out how he did that, we're that much closer to finding out what happened to your old man. I mean, that's... if you still want to find him."

"I do," Bones said, a tearful tremor in her voice.

"OK," Booth said, choosing to focus on the positives and leave this conversation at that. "Silver lining."

He just wished that he didn't feel so depressed at the implications of her last statement; in both of his lives, he'd killed people, even if they'd mostly died because he felt that he had no other choice but to do so, and Bones's words implied that she couldn't consider him a good man because of that...

* * *

Sitting in the lounge area on the Jeffersonian's upper level, Booth was surprised to find himself reminded of his time at Wolfram & Hart in a manner that didn't make him feel completely uncomfortable; they might be dealing with a pain in the neck lawyer who was more focused on making the case legally stick than acknowledging the problems they'd faced assembling that information, but at least the team were all working together towards a common singular goal.

"Turco will admit to helping Lynch place a body in Mr. Lynch's car, and rigging it to burn, with the intent of moving the market," Lisa Supek explained as she sat at the head of the table looking at the assorted 'squint squad' gathered around it (It amazed Booth how even the way they sat said so much about them; Bones at attention, Zach slumped in his chair, Hodgins looking disdainfully at Supek, Angela relatively casual, and Cam looking contemplatively at Supek from the other end of the table). "Everything else, including placing it on the tracks, he said Mr. Lynch did himself."

"Well, he's lying," Booth said simply.

"There's the small matter of proving that in court," Supek commented, glancing critically over at him.

"What's the maximum sentence on those charges?" Cam asked.

"Ten years," Supek stated.

"He killed three people," Angela said, looking indignantly at Supek at the shortness of the sentence compared to the crime.

"And put one in a coma," Hodgins added.

"Yes, but Lynch deserves to be in a coma, so it doesn't count," Zach added (Booth wondered if he should worry about the younger man's situational ethics, but quickly dismissed that train of thought; if nothing else, he completely agreed with Zach's assessment).

"All right, look," Booth said, trying to get the woman to focus on actually punishing the man in question, "Turco puts all the blame on Lynch, does the ten years, and he gets all the money from shorting the stock."

"It's ten years or nothing," Supek said, indicating the paperwork in front of her. "I can only work with what I'm given, and the forensic work on this was not good enough."

"What?" Bones said (Not that Booth could blame her; the idea that this woman was actually trying to _blame _them for being fooled by some very carefully-established fake evidence set up by a rather intelligent guy was offensive at best).

"You were fooled by fake dental records, you baked some spam..." Supek explained.

"What did you want us to do?" Cam asked.

"Your job," Supek said.

"Hey!" Booth said, glaring at the woman in frustration.

"No, Ms. Supek, you want us to do your job," Cam stated, her tone direct and emotionless as she stared at the other woman. "My people gave you all the evidence you need to fry Turco with any reasonable jury."

"Forensically-" Supek began.

"We gave you everything you needed to arrest Turco," Cam said firmly.

"Arrest is not a conviction," Supek countered.

"We gave you enough to reject his plea bargain and indict him on the wrongful death of a Senator," Cam continued (Booth was suddenly reminded of some of the cases Gunn had carried out when they'd been working at Wolfram & Hart; he might not have always understood what his friend was doing, but he'd definitely admired the way Gunn handled his cases).

"Indictment is not a conviction," Supek said (Booth hated it when people repeated themselves like that; you were trying to give them what they were after and they got all picky when you couldn't promise exact results).

"You accept that plea bargain, the investigation stops," Booth said, leaning over to ensure that Supek understood what he was saying.

"Indict him," Bones said earnestly. "Give us time to give you what you need."

"You accept this plea bargain, you don't deserve to be a federal prosecutor," Cam continued.

"Doctor Saroyan-" Supek began.

"Yeah, it's scary," Cam conceded. "The whole country will be watching the trial, and you don't want to go in with less than a sure thing. But you put my people on the stand as expert witnesses and that's a sure thing."

"Not Zach," Bones, Hodgins and Angela all said virtually simultaneously (Not that Booth could blame them; Zach was a nice enough guy, but he just didn't give the right impression for the job).

"You tell people the story of what happened using the evidence these people provided and if you have any ability as a prosecutor, you'll win the case," Cam said firmly.

"Are you finished?" Supek asked.

"No, Ms. Supek," Cam said, staring at the other woman with a cold resolution that Booth had so often seen on Buffy or Cordelia's faces when they were making a statement. "In the future, when you have problems with my team, you register them with me in private, not by grandstanding in a public forum."

With a tight smile on her face, Supek walked away from the lounge, followed by Cam, leaving Booth to smile slightly over at Bones at this evidence of Cam's skills.

"OK," Bones conceded with a faint smile. "I, um... _sort _of see why she got the job."

It was a small concession, but when dealing with Doctor Temperance Brennan, Booth had learned long ago that the small ones were the ones that really mattered; she only really made big ones when she knew she absolutely had to do so.

They might still be faced with the challenge of getting sufficient evidence together to ensure a conviction, but at least the new dynamics of the lab's command structure had been established to everyone's reasonable satisfaction...


	25. Mother and Child in the Bay

Disclaimer: I own neither Angel or anything associated with him, and "Bones" is equally out of my reach control-wise

Feedback: Appreciated

Angel of the Bones

"Why can't you go faster?" Bones asked, looking inquiringly at him as they pulled away from the Jeffersonian. "I don't see why I couldn't drive."

"Because you're agitated," Booth countered, staring at the road before him, trying not to think about his recent conversation with Rebecca.

"I am not," Bones said indignantly.

"You know what," Booth said, taking his sunglasses off with one hand while keeping the other on the steering-wheel, "you've turned this into a competition between you and Cam."

"I just like to be first on the scene, that's all," Bones said. "To protect the evidence."

"She's not going to disturb anything," Booth said; sometimes he wondered if Bones thought that she was the only person who knew how to process a crime scene with this kind of evidence...

"No, it's all tissue and blood and DNA with her; she doesn't appreciate the skeletal system," Bones said, before she pointed out of the windshield. "You can take the I-70, it'll be quicker."

"Don't back-seat drive, OK?" Booth said.

"Oh, I think I know who's agitated," Bones said, smiling at him in a manner that would have been teasing from anyone else but inspired something he really didn't want to examine too closely when it came from her.

"Someone is annoying me, OK?" Booth said, trying to restrain the urge to scoff at her insinuation. "That's different."

"Your ex," Bones said.

"Huh?" Booth asked, confused at whether Bones had just changed the subject or guessed who he was talking about.

"That's who's annoying you," Bones said, a teasing tone entering her voice as she looked at him. "Because she has a new man in her life."

"That's funny, you know?" Booth said, glaring back at her. "OK, I am concerned about my son. I wanna know what kind of guy this new boyfriend is. And you know what? If she's not gonna tell me, I'll find out on my own."

He knew that part of the reason for his paranoia where Parker was concerned was how things had fallen apart with Connor thanks to Holtz, but he'd promised himself long ago that he'd never fail his children when he was human the same way he'd failed to protect Connor; if that meant that he had to be a bit over-protective, he'd deal with the consequences of it so long as Parker had the stable childhood from the beginning that should have been Connor's.

"You're going to run a background check on him?" Bones asked, looking at him in surprise.

"You have kids and we'll talk," Booth countered.

"That's a lot to ask for a little conversation," Bones said, the anthropologist indicating another direction when Booth simply scoffed at her comment. "If you make a right we can cut through Grafton."

"Fine," Booth said, turning in the indicated direction; at this point, he was just glad for a chance to end this awkward conversation.

* * *

"You want me to what?" Booth asked, not certain if he'd heard Bones correctly as he walked through the corridors of the FBI building while talking to his partner on his cellphone; he might have become more capable in its use since he was Angel, but that didn't mean that he didn't still have some trouble sometimes.

"_Stab the body for me_," Bones repeated. "_We need to match force with the injuries recorded on the remains_."

"OK, I'm stabbing the body..." Booth said, trying to work out the chain of circumstances that led to Doctor Temperance Brennan _wanting _to compromise evidence...

"_Well, it's a replica_," Bones clarified. "_We're all going to do it, you're just the closest to Kyle Richardson_."

"OK, you know what, that's great, be there in twenty," Booth said, satisfied that the most important question was answered; at least Bones hadn't suddenly suffered a mental breakdown or anything like that. "But in the future you're just going to have to ask me differently, Bones, because you know what? Come over to your place to stab a body; that is just freaky."

"Seeley, you son of a bitch," a voice said, drawing Booth's attention from the phone call, prompting him to turn around and take in the sight of a familiar blonde walking down the corridor in a purple top and a black knee-length skirt.

_Rebecca_...

God, this conversation was _never _going to be anything other than awkward; their relationship was so complicated to define for him at times. Even without the fact that they engaged in the occasional 'sexual liaison' when they weren't in any active relationships and needed the release- making their dynamic even harder to define than it would have been in some of his past relationships; he just was never sure how to fully break it off-, there was also the issue that he'd kept so much about his past secret from her when they were dating... the complete absence of information he'd provided about his vampiric history...

"Oh, I- Rebecca," he said, pushing those thoughts aside as he terminated the conversation with Bones. "Wow, you look great."

"Yeah, okay, save it 'cause I need a lot more than compliments from you right now," Rebecca said, glaring at him in such a manner that Booth didn't feel capable of even looking away from her as he backed towards his office.

"OK, just... keep it down a little bit," he said, making shushing motions as they passed through a crowded area, Booth turning around only long enough to walk through the door of his office before he turned back to face her. "'Cause I'm at work, all right?"

"You sent agents to investigate Drew?" Rebecca asked, as they walked through the door of his office. "Because you're going to stop that now."

"OK, listen, I'm just being cautious," Booth said, holding up his hands defensively. "What do you really know about this guy, anyway?"

"I know- I know that he has a good job," Rebecca said, still glaring at him as Booth was forced to walk backwards to the other side of his desk as she continued to rant. "And I know that he fixes stuff around the house when he says he's going to And I know that Parker is crazy about him and he's not terrified every time he goes off to work that he's going to get shot. And I know that I love him."

That last comment was enough to get Booth to turn around; whenever the mother of his son started using that word to refer to someone else, he felt that a _bit _of concern was natural...

"I love him," Rebecca repeated, a brief smile on her face at the statement before she resumed glaring at him. "And now everyone at work thinks he's a criminal."

"Well, he's been spotted with explosives," Booth pointed out.

"He is a construction foreman, he does demolition," Rebecca countered. "You must have figured that out when you were doing all of your snooping."

"OK, well, I have a right to know who's around my son, all right?" Booth countered. "He spends more time with Parker than I do."

"OK, you think that I would put Parker in danger?" Rebecca asked (Booth could never decide if Rebecca's lack of knowledge of his past was a good or bad thing at this point; if she didn't know how his relationship with Connor had been so difficult, she had no reason to be concerned about his experience as a father, but on the other hand it meant that she didn't understand the reasons for his caution when his son was concerned).

"Let me ask you a question," he said, trying to focus on the questions that he could answer without compromising his secret past as Angel. "Why is it that you keep all the men in your life such a secret?"

"Because you always interrogate them or intimidate them, and it freaks them out!" Rebecca retaliated.

"Well, I mean, c'mon... a lot are a little strange," Booth replied, trying to make a joke about this increasingly awkward topic. "I mean, the guy with the tattoos on his neck?"

"I don't even have to let you see Parker, OK?" Rebecca interrupted. "Not-not-not legally. That-that's one of the upsides of not being married."

"Don't," Booth said, staring firmly at her; they might not agree about some issues, but he _couldn't _cope with what she was implying...

"I'm a good father," he said firmly. "You know that."

"You're got to stop trying to run things," Rebecca said after a moment's silence. "I've got things in my life that have nothing to do with you."

She turned to leave, but Booth grabbed her arm before she could reach the door.

"OK, look," he said, turning around so that they were facing each other again, "we are always gonna have something to do with each other because we share a son."

"Drew's a good man," Rebecca said firmly. "And you need to back off or you're not gonna see Parker again, I swear. Back off."

As Rebecca walked out, Booth could only stare after her, trying to conceal the fear he felt at just the thought of the scenario she'd just suggested.

* * *

"I don't know how they can do it," Bones said as they drove back to the Jeffersonian after their last meeting with Carlie Richardson's friends.

"They're self-obsessed," Booth said with a shrug. "They have no conscience."

"I don't know..." Bones muttered.

"They destroy anything that gets in their way," Booth continued. "They're not even human." (He acknowledged that he was exaggerating that last bit, but after spending so much time around demons he sometimes wondered if he'd developed an 'idealised' version of humanity as a whole and forgotten just what people could be capable of when they were just people without the supernatural in their lives).

"The mothers?" Bones asked, looking at him in surprise.

"Huh?" Booth said, confused at his partner's sudden change of subject.

"I was talking about the mothers," Bones clarified.

"I'm talking about the killers," Booth responded.

"I understand killers," Bones said. "I just don't know how mothers can do it. I mean, dogs can be trained in a couple of weeks. With kids, mothers have to give up their lives for years."

"No," Booth corrected, remembering his own experiences holding Connor and Parker for the first time; everything that happened to Connor after the fact had been hard, but he wouldn't have changed it for anything. "When you're looking at your kid, you don't feel like you're giving up anything."

"So you would do it again?" Bones asked.

"What?" Booth asked, looking at her in confusion.

"You'd have Parker even with everything you're going through?" Bones elaborated.

"What kind of question is that?" Booth asked.

"Wouldn't it be easier if Parker wasn't caught in this... drama of yours with Rebecca and the new boyfriend?" Bones elaborated.

"God, no," Booth said; parenthood might not be easy, but he wasn't even going to _contemplate _a scenario where he never had a second shot at being a father. "No, Bones. He's my son. Whatever we're going through, it's not about that; he knows that."

"That's what parents say when they want to justify themselves," Bones said, the grim tone in her voice less effective than it might have been due to the accompanying smile on her face.

"You know," Booth said, his temper momentarily overriding his politeness, "I haven't walked out on Parker, all right? I would never have done what your parents did."

"Well, I didn't say you would," Bones responded, her casual tone at least suggesting she hadn't taken offence to him bringing up her parents like that. "I just... I don't know."

She sighed in frustration as she stared at the road in front of them. "You're the father. I don't know anything about raising kids, so-"

"Parker's fine," Booth said firmly, ignoring his partner's sceptical glance at him as they continued driving.

He had failed Connor in so many ways, but he would _not _fail Parker.

* * *

"I wonder if he'll even care, you know," Booth wondered, as he and Bones drove in his car away from the Jeffersonian, their minds filled with the implications of their latest discoveries. "Finding out that his wife is dead."

"He didn't kill her," Bones pointed out.

"No, but he ran," Booth interjected; he wasn't going to accept any excuse for someone abandoning his family like that. "How do you just cut your family out of your life like that?"

"Well, what about Abraham?" Bones asked.

"What, you're going to throw religion in my face right now?" Booth countered, leaping to the most obvious statement he could make when faced with such a drastic and unexpected change of subject.

"I thought you found answers in what you believe," Bones asked.

"Well, I mean, that's just one Bible story that I just don't like," Booth said; regardless of what time in his life he'd been at- whether Liam, Angelus, Angel or Booth-, it had never felt right to him (Even if Angelus had just not liked it because he felt that God should have let Abraham kill his son anyway). "I mean, God commands Abraham to kill his own son, and he does."

"No," Bones corrected. "Abraham did not kill Isaac."

"But old Abe, you know, he had the intention-" Booth began.

"Well, I thought what he had was faith," Bones asked.

"Look, I have faith," Booth interrupted; this wasn't the time to get into a theological argument, so he was just going to say what mattered and leave it at that. "But if God himself came down, pointed at Parker and said, 'I want you to... you know'; that ain't gonna happen."

He might have had to kill Connor, but that was only because he had made the kind of deal with Lilah and the Senior Partners that even they couldn't cheat on without jeopardising their new desire for him to take control of the company; even they couldn't 'trick' him into killing Connor unless they were genuinely going to bring him back to life afterwards without suffering consequences.

"But God's messenger stopped Abraham?" Bones asked.

"Yeah," Booth conceded. "Grabbed his hand at the last second right before the knife was about to go in."

"OK," Bones said, looking thoughtfully at him. "Then the lesson I would learn from the myth-"

"Myth?" Booth repeated; he might not be certain about the specifics of the Bible, but he still didn't like comparing it to myths.

"Well, it fits the definition," Bones clarified.

"OK, fine," Booth said; he didn't have the time or desire to argue that point right now, and he wanted to hear Bones's final point anyway.

"That when it comes to your children," Bones continued, "your love has to be absolute. The messenger represents goodness, what you know to be right. Ergo, you have to remain open to what you know is true."

Despite the grim mood of the conversation, Booth had to admit that what he'd just heard was the most positive thing he'd ever heard Bones say about religion.

"Are you sure you're not religious?" he asked.

"Science all the way," Bones replied, smiling slightly at him. "Hey, even an empiricist can have a heart, Booth."

"Too bad Richardson doesn't..." Booth said, as his mind turned back to the task awaiting them.

* * *

"He's fine?" Kyle Richardson asked, looking uncertainly at them as he paced around Booth's office, clearly shocked at the news that his presumed-dead son was still alive over a year after his mother's death.

"He's perfect," Booth said, looking at Kyle with a neutral expression; considering Kyle's obvious shock at this news, he'd give the other man a chance to step up before judging him for his past.

"And you're sure?" Kyle asked, slightly stammering as he looked back at them.

"He's yours," Bones confirmed.

"When I thought he was gone," Kyle said, ceasing his earlier pacing as he looked at them with a slight edge of what Booth could only think of as nervous excitement about his manner, "and Carlie... I wished I could have changed how things had been."

Kyle's further thoughts were cut off when a social worker entered, carrying the baby boy they had earlier identified as the presumed dead Baby Richardson (Booth wondered if Kyle was going to change the kid's name, considering that he'd been named by his mother's killer, but quickly concluded that it wasn't his business; Kyle could sort that out later).

"Don't you want to hold him?" the social worker asked, holding the baby out to Kyle.

"I don't know," Kyle said, awkwardness once again dominating his appearance. "The kind of guy I am... I'm no father."

"You don't get to decide that," Booth said, memories of his own instinctive reaction to Darla identifying him as her baby's father flashing through his mind; even before he'd contemplated the possibilities of what the child of two vampires would be like, his inability to provide a good role model had been the first thing to occur to him. "You have a son. Step up. Take him."

Staring at his son for a moment, Kyle stepped forward and took the baby from the social worker, smiling uncertainly at the child he'd never known about before now.

"Hey..." he said, smiling at the baby in his arms, hugging him close before he looked at Booth, a smile slowly spreading across his face as he held the last remnant of his wife to him. "Thank you."

Looking at the reunited father and soon, Booth could only smile in satisfaction at the sight before him.

He enjoyed his job of bringing murderers to justice, but there was something far more satisfying- maybe because of how rare it was- in those moments when he was able to bring a family together, rather than just providing a broken group with answers to what had happened to their missing member.

Kyle might have his doubts, but now that he had the chance to step up, it was clear that he was ready and willing to at least try and be a better father to his son; sometimes, you never knew how someone would cope in a situation until they were actually there.


	26. The Boy in the Shroud

Disclaimer: I own neither Angel or anything associated with him, and "Bones" is equally out of my reach control-wise

Feedback: Appreciated

AN: A unique little original scene at the conclusion of this chapter- as opposed to me just 're-interpreting' a scene from the perspective of Booth-as-Angel-, but I felt that it was appropriate

Angel of the Bones

"I assume you're familiar with the Shroud of Turin?" Angela asked, walking around the lab as Booth, Bones and Cam took up position about the laboratory table where Angela had draped the 'burial shroud' of their latest victim, an elaborate camera positioned above the shroud.

"Image of Christ's face on the inside of a burial cloth," Booth replied, briefly remembering the Shroud of Rahmon that had nearly driven him and Gunn to attack each other, to say nothing of what he'd almost done to Kate while under its influence; like every holy artefact, even the Shroud of Turin had to have its counterpart on the other side of the cosmic board, he supposed, even if he was still unclear on whether the Shroud of Turin was meant to have any kind of holy properties about it...

"Right, Booth's a good Catholic boy," Cam said, smiling slightly as she looked at him.

"It was revealed to be a hoax," Bones said in her usual blunt manner.

"It wasn't a hoax," Booth interjected, more out of habit than genuine belief; he believed more in the messages of Christianity rather than the specific details, but the denial helped his image of Seeley Booth as a Catholic attempting to atone for past sins.

"OK, whatever you want to believe..." Bones said, a slight smile in her voice.

"This is no hoax," Angela replied, pulling up a scan of the shroud and demonstrating a photo-negative of the features of their victim on the computer positioned at the side of the lab. "On the fabric covering John Doe's skull, there are tissue stains around the eye sockets, the nose and the mouth. This is essentially a photo negative of his features."

"Are you saying you have enough to assemble a face?" Cam asked, looking at Angela briefly before focusing her attention on the display in front of them.

"I call it the Shroud of Montenegro," Angela explained, a face slowly starting to appear on the projection behind her as she continued to talk, starting with the cheeks and chin before going on to display more detailed impressions of the eyes, mouth and hair of their victim. "I used computer tomography to create x- ray slices of the underlying facial architecture. Selective laser centering allowed me to map unimprinted areas. Skin tone and hair colour were extrapolated based on Doctor. Saroyan's data."

"I'm no expert," Bones said, studying the image that had emerged on the projection, which now showed a young man in his mid- to late teens with dark hair and a strong nose and chin, "but he sure doesn't look like a street kid."

Booth was just grateful that this particular shroud looked like it would inspire more peace than the last one he'd dealt with; if they could just find a way to avoid bringing up Cam's preconceptions about street kids without making Bones's past a topic of discussion, this whole thing could go forward without too many inter-departmental confrontations...

* * *

"Were you lying to the boy?" Bones asked, as they walked into her office after their talk with Kelly Morris's foster mother; somehow, both of them had silently agreed that this kind of conversation was best saved for the more professional atmosphere of her office rather than the car ride between the Jeffersonian and the FBI. "Do you really think Kelly Morris is still alive?"

"Ah, I don't know," Booth said with a slight shrug.

"You don't know if she's alive?" Bones asked, looking at him as she turned on the lights in her office.

"I don't know if I was lying," Booth corrected, Bones heading for her desk as he continued to speak. "Ya see, I just... I really don't have a read on the sister yet. I mean was she a bad guy? Was she a victim?"

"Well, do you have a read on Dylan Crane?" Bones asked, as she sat down behind her desk.

"Oh yeah," Booth said, shrugging nonchalantly at the question as he settled down on Bones's couch. "He had that whole adolescent saviour complex thing going on big time."

"Saviour complex?" Bones repeated as she opened a file on her desk, glancing over it even as she took in his words.

"Yeah, teenage boys love nothing more than the idea of saving the damsel in distress," Booth said, smiling briefly at the memory of some of Xander and Oz's actions; even when they'd been dealing with women who were more than capable of defending themselves- Buffy had her Slayer strength from the beginning, and Willow and Cordelia weren't exactly weak even if they'd initially been shaken at the discovery of the truth about the world they lived in-, those two couldn't resist the urge to protect their partners, the girls' safety always their priority...

"How do you know?" Bones asked, looking at him with a slightly quizzical smile.

"Well," Booth said, deciding to go with the most obvious 'real' explanation for that knowledge- even if he hadn't been that type of teenage boy when he'd actually been one-, "cause I was, ya know, I was a teenage boy."

"Hey," Cam said, entering the office and placing a file on Bones's desk. "DNA from the tissue under the victim's fingernail. Female. And there's nail polish in the gouges on his arm."

"Well, it wasn't necessarily from the murder," Bones pointed out, putting the paper back on her desk. "They were sexually active. She might've scratched him."

"Nope," Cam said with a firm shake of her head. "Hodgins also found oxidized iron in the scratches."

"Oxidized iron," Booth repeated, looking at his former (He _remembered _dating her, even if it technically hadn't 'really' happened) girlfriend as he walked over to lean on Bones's desk. "What's that?"

"Rust," Bones and Cam said simultaneously, looking at him as though they were surprised he didn't know that already.

"Why didn't you just say rust?" Booth asked; why these women liked to go for the more complicated answers he'd never understand...

"Well, she said it," Bones pointed out defensively.

"The same oxidized iron found on the victim's upper back and shoulder," Cam clarified.

"Probably left behind by the weapon that stuck him," Bones suggested.

"So," Booth asked, standing up from the desk to look thoughtfully at Cam, "he was hit with... what? A rusty pipe?"

"That's a reasonable assumption," Cam confirmed.

"Oh, so Dylan tells the girlfriend they're breaking up-" Booth began, the most immediate possibility springing to his mind as he turned over the facts in his head.

"She whacks him across the carotid with a pipe-" Cam continued.

"And pushes him out the window," Booth finished.

"Exactly," Cam said.

"What?" Booth asked, noticing Bones's slightly stunned-and-annoyed glare as she stared at him and Cam. "What's with the stink eyes? It's just a theory."

"There was cheap nail polish in the box of Kelly's belongings," Bones said, apparently so incensed at his assessment that she didn't even want to respond to his question. "You should see if there's a match."

"Find some hair," Cam said, turning back to look at him. "Match the DNA on that then get started on the, uh, murder weapon."

"Yeah," Booth said.

Without saying a word to them, Bones got up from her chair, picked up her jacket and headed for the door to her office.

"Where are you going?" Booth asked, looking at his partner in concern as she paused in the door to grab her lab coat.

"I thought that before we arrest Kelly Morris for murder, based _solely_ on the fact that she's a foster kid, we might want to find the place where Dylan Crane actually died," Bones replied, shrugging on her coat as she looked at the two of them. "Point of fact, the pipe, if that's even what it was, was not the murder weapon. The evidence, if anybody cares, shows that Dylan Crane died from a fall."

As the forensic anthropologist walked out of the office, Booth could only look quietly at Cam.

He'd always known that Bones cared about the victims, but he'd never seen her that vocally passionate about anything that didn't involve protecting evidence.

Even after working with her on a constant basis for the better part of a year, there were times when Bones could still manage to surprise him...

* * *

As he watched Cam carry out the autopsy of Kevin Duncan in the side lab that had become Cam's 'territory' ever since she'd started working in the Jeffersonian, he was only slightly surprised to learn that she'd requested Zack's assistance in the case; the young man might be Bones's assistant, but Cam seemed to be making a surprisingly effective effort to bond with him despite his weird social skills, as well as encouraging him to operate slightly outside of his usual 'comfort zone' of focusing on purely skeletal remains.

"Feeling queasy, Zack?" Cam asked, as she felt her way through Duncan's cut-open chest.

"I'm not used to bodies looking so much like actual human beings," Zack clarified. Smiling slightly at him in response, Cam started to cut into the bone with the saw, leaving Booth to look away for a few moments as she worked; even after what he remembered Angelus doing, there were times when he just wasn't in the mood to see more post-death 'mutilation', no matter how much he understood the necessity.

"Since this man was just killed and there's plenty of flesh, how is my presence beneficial?" Zack asked, only for Cam to respond as she finished her work with the saw and pulled a bone out of the rib cage, a bullet obviously lodged in it, and placed it in a tray in Zack's hands.

"The number six rib," Zack said, looking at the new object in understanding.

"The bullet passed through his vital organs and lodged in the rear curvature," Cam explained. "Get it out."

Nodding in response, Zack turned to walk away from the body and out of the lab, leaving Booth and Cam alone in the lab once again.

"So," Booth said, taking advantage of the silence as Zack left, "you're thinking the perv kills Romeo, and Juliet kills the pervert?"

"Street smart kid like Kelly Morris would have no trouble getting her hands on a gun," Cam said, prompting a thoughtful murmur from Booth; he acknowledged the theoretical point that she was making, but he didn't exactly think it was fair to assume that foster children would have no trouble getting their hands on weapons; Gunn had been fairly street smart and he probably wouldn't know where to _begin _to look for a gun (Even if that was mainly because he'd never bothered as it would have been relatively useless against his usual enemies).

"Booth," Cam said, drawing his thoughts away from alternative possible explanations for the current crime, "if Dr. Brennan were to quit..."

"What?" Bones said, looking up at her after a moment's silence had passed since her last statement, wanting to be sure he'd heard her correctly before he responded to her query.

"If she were to leave the Jeffersonian-" Cam elaborated.

"Well, the squints would flee this institution like the French Army," Booth finished for her.

"And you?" Cam asked.

"Well, I do as I'm ordered..." Booth said, smiling awkwardly at her.

"No, you don't, Seeley," Cam said, which at least answered one question Booth had about her knowledge of him; even if he was part of a chain of command these days, he still didn't like taking orders when he didn't agree with them...

"OK, here we go," he said, ignoring the implications of the train of thought inspired by her last statement as he stood up and walked over to stand more directly in front of the smaller woman. "What's going on, Camille?"

"What if I fired her?" Cam asked, looking down at the floor for a moment before focusing her attention back on him. "What would you do?"

Booth wondered what it was about his life that meant that he always had to choose between one romantic partner or another whenever he was in a situation where his ex met his current relationship. He'd been lucky enough to avoid getting into that kind of situation after he developed feelings for Cordelia- he and Buffy had met during that whole thing with the dragon and Jhiera's return, but considering Cordelia's absence from the hotel at the time it wasn't that big an issue as the two of them weren't in the same place at the same time even if Cordelia hadn't been possessed at that point-, but when Buffy and Darla had come face-to-face he'd made the choice to save Buffy by staking Darla...

"I'm with Bones, Cam," he said, giving the pathologist the truthful response she was looking for. "All the way. Don't doubt it for a second."

"Meet the English Alba Rose," Hodgins said, walking into the lab before Cam could respond to his last statement- which at least spared Booth the complication of being potentially asked to define the reason for his chosen 'allegiance'-, a long-stemmed white rose in his hand. "Climbing varietal, nonexistent in the United States. Some say, it was the rose by any other name Shakespeare wrote about."

"And we give a rat's ass because...?" Booth asked, looking critically at the entomologist; if he was going to be interrupted during a difficult conversation, he'd like it to be for a good reason.

"It's what Dylan Crane was clutching in his cold, dead hand," Hodgins clarified.

"So... what?" Cam asked. "He was killed by Hamlet?"

"Wrong play," Hodgins corrected with a smile. "It's more likely he paid a visit to the rose wing of the United States Botanic Garden."

"When it comes to bugs, slime, crud and compost," Cam said, smiling in approval at his discovery, "you're the man."

Bowing briefly at the Jeffersonian's new head, Hodgins laughed slightly before he turned around and left the lab, leaving them to continue their earlier conversation.

"Look, Cam," Booth said, deciding to take a chance to tackle the previously-discussed issue as Hodgins left the lab, "maybe you just got off on the wrong foot with this case with Brennan because, uh... she was a foster kid."

"Oh," Cam said, looking upwards awkwardly and sighing in understanding as she processed this new information. "Why didn't she tell me?"

"She doesn't do that," Booth said, getting up from where he'd been leaning against a counter and walking towards the lab door, pausing as he reached a point beside Cam to lean over and address her in a lower voice "Oh, by the way, I didn't just tell you that."

Cam merely nodded in response as he continued to walk out of the lab, leaving him to wonder if what he'd done would make any difference to the relationship between his partner and her boss in the longer run...

* * *

Sitting in his apartment that night, Booth wondered how he should feel about the conclusion of the case.

He might have solved the murder, but the fact that that the whole mess had just been the result of a kid brother trying to protect his sister based on a misinterpretation of the facts...

It was almost more tragic that the 'Romeo and Juliet' analogies the team had been making throughout this whole case; at least they'd known about the dangers they were facing in trying to be together from the beginning, but Dylan and Kelly had just wanted to be together and give Alex a chance, and everything went wrong because he didn't realise what they were trying to do...

Still, at least Dylan and Kelly had tried to take the chances offered to them; they might not be together now, but they had been in a position where they'd had the chance, and they'd tried to take it.

People might call him a sap, but after everything he'd been through in his relationships with Buffy and Cordelia, both of which had fallen apart before he could really start something with Cordelia or due to horrific outside circumstances for Buffy, he liked to know that there were some people out there who still wanted to at least _try _for that ever-elusive 'happy ever after'.

Love might not be all you needed, but if you had it, it made everything else seem possible... but sometimes, as Harmony had tried to point out to Wesley during the dark day of Illyria's resurrection and Fred's death, all you could do was enjoy the fact that you'd had the love of the love of your life for a time.

Booth just hoped that Kelly would find someone else to help her in that manner again eventually...


	27. The Blonde in the Game

Disclaimer: I own neither Angel or anything associated with him, and "Bones" is equally out of my reach control-wise

Feedback: Appreciated

Angel of the Bones

As he sat opposite Howard Epps, Booth was almost surprised at how quickly he felt the urge to pummel the guy's face in returned with a vengeance.

He'd faced down most of Wolfram & Hart's chief lawyers and satisfied himself with threats when he was in a good mood- his attitude towards them during his 'dark phase' didn't really count, and cutting off Lindsey's hand had just been done to save Cordelia rather than any specific desire to cause Lindsey pain himself-, but just being in the same room as this handcuffed sociopath, who'd killed at least three women and found it amusing when he was meant to _have _a soul...

"Who's this?" he said, removing a photograph from the file he'd brought to the interview and pointing at the girl shown in it; the best way to get anywhere with the likes of Epps was to hit them with the situation as directly as possible.

Despite his best intentions, he smiled as Epps's attempt to stand to look at the photo more clearly was cut short when his handcuffs and other assorted chains stopped him from rising more than a couple of inches out of his seat.

"Ohhh!" he said, grinning before assuming a mockingly serious expression as he sat down opposite the serial killer. "That's right, you're chained."

"How about removing these shackles?" Epps asked, bending over so that his face was close to Booth's despite his bonds remaining intact.

"The new, Howie," Booth said, refusing to acknowledge a request that Epps would have known wouldn't be granted anyway. "The name."

Staring at the photo, Epps didn't even bother to answer for a moment, but simply sat back down in his chair, staring blanking at Booth.

"You know," he said, squeezing his wrist slowly as he spoke in a sickeningly nonchalant tone, "those hack doctors and the prison infirmary... did a miserable job setting my wrist. It aches all the time, and I don't have a full range of movement. And let me tell you, when you're stuck in a prison cell for twenty-three hours a day, there's really only one thing you can do to pass the time. And I need my wrist."

"Well," Booth said, staring back at the prisoner, "I'm sure Doctor Brennan will be happy to... re-break it for you."

With that said, he picked up the file folder and tapped it on the table, deliberately drawing Epps' attention to it.

"What's that?" Epps asked.

"What, these?" Booth asked, his tone level. "These are crime scene photos, the ones you like. Tell you what. You, ah, you tell me the girl's name, I'll, uh, let you take a look."

"Everything you need to win the game is right there in front of you," Epps replied, a slight smile on his face that was only visible if you had experience with that kind of grin.

"Game?" Booth repeated, trying to ignore the disturbing implications of that particular term- especially when his own past as Angelus was taken into account- as he looked at Epps, his tone carefully chosen to make it sound like he'd been expecting this news. "You're bored, huh? Are you playing us?"

"When Doctor Brennan figures it out," Epps said, leaning towards Booth with an impassive expression, "come and see me again. But bring your lady scientist. Otherwise... I don't say a word."

"Next time you see either one of us," Booth retorted coldly, "they'll be giving you a lethal injection."

With that said, he stood up and walked out of the door as the guard opened it for him, leaving Epps to sit in his chains and wait for nothing to happen.

Booth might have operated on a principle of giving people second chances when he'd been Angel, but they had to deserve those chances before he offered them, and so far Epps was lower scum than Lindsey as far as he was concerned...

* * *

Walking into the 'M' Salon as another customer departed, Booth tried not to pay too much attention to the photograph of Caroline with Howard Epps that he could just see sitting next on one of the shelves; the thought that anyone could actually want to _marry _that guy, _knowing _what he'd done...

"Hi," he said, smiling politely at Caroline as she registered his presence, flipping the sign on the door behind him to indicate that the store was closed; this was definitely a conversation that should be held in private.

"Is-is Howard OK?" Caroline asked.

"Howard's fine, Mrs Epps; you don't have to worry about anything," Booth said, leaning against a nearby glass shelf as he smiled reassuringly at her. "I couldn't help but notice the 'Help Wanted' sign in the window. Did you recently lose one of your employees?"

"It's, uh, hard to keep help that doesn't steal from you," Caroline said, walking out from behind the desk to place some items on a stylist's station.

"Sarah Koskoff steal from you?" Booth asked, after glancing at a bottle of hair product to give a more nonchalant impression about the question.

"No," Caroline replied, looking at him in confusion through the mirror before she returned to her work. "Why? What did she do?"

"She died," Booth said, carefully watching her reaction as she turned to look at him. "You know, I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you... but when was the last time you saw her?"

"Uh, three weeks ago," Caroline replied, looking at him in confused shock. "She just... stopped coming to work. She-she died?"

"Did you ever, uh, talk to Howard about her?" Booth asked, sitting down in a nearby chair as he watched Caroline's reaction.

"Uh... I don't know," Epps's wife replied uncertainly. "Maybe..."

"Howard ever see a picture of Sarah?" Booth asked before Caroline could finish thinking about that last question; rapid-fire questions encouraged honest answers.

"I-I don't like this," Caroline said, looking at him in confusion. "What's going on?"

"She was found buried face down in an abandoned mine," Booth replied, staring intently at her. "Back of her head bashed in; wrists, ankles tied. Your husband's M.O."

"Poor Sarah," Caroline said, turning away to look at the mirror, an expression of sorrow that Booth couldn't determine the nature of; it could be genuine, or it could just as easily be that of a good actress...

"But Howard..." Caroline said, turning to look at Booth after staring at her picture of Epps. "Howard has been in prison for the last seven years; how could he kill anyone?"

"He has an accomplice," Booth informed her, allowing her to draw her own conclusions regarding his reasons for mentioning that fact.

"You think it's me?" Caroline asked, clearly shocked at the idea.

"You love your husband," Booth pointed out.

"I love the good in Howard; I reject the evil," Caroline replied, with a smile of almost disturbing joy (Booth wasn't sure if he should be disturbed at the reminder of his relationship with Buffy; she might have been able to see past Angelus's sins, but at least they'd both _known _that he wasn't the man who'd done those things and was working to atone for his past). "I reject the evil. We're going to have a child together. I've petitioned the court to let Howard donate."

"Yeah," Booth said, clearing his throat- he wasn't touching _that _topic any more than he had to- before he returned to business. "I have a search warrant here for your home and your shop."

"You don't need a search warrant," Caroline said. "You can look anywhere you want, because you won't find anything."

Once again, her expression- although slightly grimmer towards the end of her statement- gave no indication whether she genuinely had nothing to hide or if she was just really good at keeping secrets (And the fact that she was at least _slightly _mad for being interested in a psychopath like Epps in the first place didn't exactly help him come to a conclusion one way or the other).

* * *

As he walked into the abandoned post office, Bones carrying a flashlight behind him, Booth made a mental note to take Hodgins out for a drink or something later on; the guy might be able to easily afford to buy his own _bar _if he wanted, but the essential sentiment of getting out for a bit of R&R after a very difficult experience wasn't something that should be overlooked.

Hodgins might have been operating far outside of his usual comfort zone when making that deduction/guess for them earlier, but he'd pulled through in the end- with Angela's help, anyway- and would hopefully be better prepared to make that kind of assessment in future if this kind of situation arose again (Not that Booth _wanted _to be in this position again, and he fully understood Hodgins' reasons for freaking out- the guy was used to finding information in the aftermath, not having to make a potentially life-or-death decision on his feet-, but it was best to be prepared for the worst).

Now the only challenge was if they'd find Helen Majors in this post office sorting centre before everything came to the kind of conclusion that he _really _didn't want; even if Hodgins was right about this place, he'd probably still have trouble forgiving himself if it turned out that they'd arrived here too late to help their would-have-been victim...

Still, the abandoned sorting centre idea made sense based on what Hodgins had told them and what they knew of this new apprentice; all they had to do now was find their victim in this mini-maze.

"All right," he said, reaching down to pull a small pistol out of his ankle holster and handing it to Bones; considering the potential danger of the current situation, it would probably be best to get the whole argument about whether or not his partner should have a gun out of the way and give it to her now. "Here."

"I didn't even have to ask," Bones said, taking the gun automatically.

"Yeah, well, just be careful, all right?" Booth said, glancing around himself as he and Bones walked slowly through the centre, searching for some sign of the woman they were here to help or the killer they were here to stop. "Don't shoot me, don't shoot Helen Majors; otherwise-"

The sound of chains rattling prompted that discussion to come to a halt, Booth exchanging a glance with Bones as they evaluated the possible source of the sound before progressing along the makeshift corridor they were currently in. Finally reaching an entryway a short distance down the corridor, they glanced inside and found themselves looking at Helen Majors, crying softly as she hung upside-down with a chain around her ankles.

"Please..." the girl sobbed, seemingly saying the word automatically as she hung facing away from the window that allowed them to see her. "Please..."

Booth glanced at Bones before hurrying around the corner, quickly finding a more direct route to the hanging girl than crashing through the door; right now, the clearly terrified girl didn't need more shocks than she had to receive.

"Helen?" Booth asked, holstering his gun as he hurried up to her.

"Please..." Helen said, still crying despite the sound of a new voice. "Please help me..."

"All right," Booth said, Bones switching on a nearby light as he walked over to Helen and picked her up from underneath, supporting her as Bones helped to lower the chain holding her in place until she was lying on the ground. "OK, take it easy; I got you... I got you, I got you, all right? Where is he?"

"He just left," Helen said, still sobbing in terror. "I don't know where he went."

"Bones, stay here with her," Booth said, looking up at his partner as she finished lowering Helen's legs to the ground. "Stay right there."

With that instruction issued, he pulled out his gun and left the room, Bones and Helen's voices quickly becoming nothing but background noise as he walked through the abandoned storage centre, flashlight aimed in various different directions as he searched for the killer that was the focus of his current efforts. He was just turning around a corner near what looked like an old printing press when something leapt on him from the shadows, striking his arm with a crowbar and forcing Booth to release his gun and flashlight from the shock of the impact, the following attack only just missing Booth as he rolled away. His reflexes slower than they would have been if he'd been attacked as Angel, Booth could only roll out of the way to avoid the second attempted attack, but quickly found himself pinned and out of space after avoiding a third attempt. For a moment, he could only stare up at the man who could only be Lappin, dressed in what looked like a brown leather apron and a dark shirt, as he raised the crowbar for a final time, before a gunshot brought the attacker to a halt.

Lappin turned just enough to see Bones staring at him, the gun and a flashlight in her hands and her eyes wide with horror, before blood oozed from his mouth and he dropped the crowbar before collapsing to the ground himself, leaving Booth to slowly get back to his feet as Bones slowly walked forward, the gun and flashlight still held out in front of her as though frozen in position.

"Is he dead?" Booth asked, looking up at his partner before processing that she was currently too shaken to check herself, prompting him to reach over and check the other man's neck for himself.

"Yeah, he's dead," he said, finding no sign of life at the pulse before he fell back to the ground with a groan; the last blow to his arm had been more effective than it had initially seemed.

As though those words had been a cue, Bones's arms dropped, visibly relieved, even as her mouth opened in shock at what she had just done, simply staring at Lappin's vacant expression.

"Good," Booth said, nodding at her as he sat up, cradling his injured arm as he leaned against the printing press beside him.

"I had to shoot him," Bones said, sounding more lost and shaken than she had ever expressed in his previous experience.

"Yeah," Booth said, nodding at her with all the reassurance he could spare while still trying to process the shock of recent events. "I'm glad you did."

He felt the inadequacy of that statement as soon as he uttered it, but there was nothing else that he could do right now to console his partner's reaction to what had happened.

He'd helped his friends in Sunnydale and Los Angeles train, but he'd never been there to help the first time they'd had to kill something (Mainly because they so rarely tried to kill anything they'd actually have to feel guilty about killing)...

* * *

Standing opposite Howard Epps once again, Booth wondered what made him more frustrated; that Epps had set all of this up while in prison, or just how goddamn _smug _he was about the whole thing (The fact that he was in a cast didn't help matters; it might be a hangover from the time he'd spent as the supernatural healer, but Booth _hated _showing weakness even if he couldn't control something like how long he'd take to heal).

"Well done," Epps said, almost sounding approving of their actions. "Really."

"Game's over, Howie," Booth said firmly.

"Yes," Epps said, smiling faintly in what Booth didn't need Angelus's expertise to tell him was self-satisfaction. "I won."

"Only if you wanted your accomplice dead," Bones said, sitting down cautiously in front of Epps to better look him in the eye.

"Lappin's dead?" Epps said.

"Shot resisting arrest," Booth confirmed.

"Who shot him?" Epps asked. Booth said nothing in response, but a faint mumble from Bones was apparently enough to answer Epps's question. "It was you, wasn't it?"

Bones lifted her chin in slight defiance, but otherwise said nothing to confirm or deny the killer's assessment.

"You shot him?" Epps asked, still staring at Bones for clarification. "Did he take long to die?"

Bones continued her silence, simply clenching her jaw.

"Did he suffer?" Epps asked, Booth's eyes automatically narrowing at the tone of the other man's voice as his gaze briefly shifted to Booth. "This is better than I thought; I thought it would be you."

With that comment he turned his attention back to Bones, not even bothering to wait for Booth to respond to his comment. "How did it feel? Dirty, yes? But there's also a rush... of pleasure. Part of you liked it."

Looking back, that was one part of Angelus that Booth sometimes found himself missing; the belief that everyone else was just as twisted as you were made it so much easier to kill the other guy when you were _really _angry at them...

Angelus could do that.

Hell, even _Angel _was willing to go that far when faced with some of his foes.

But Booth...

It was the downside of facing humans when he himself was only human; you constantly felt obligated to give them a shot to make up for what they'd done because it was what you'd like people to do for you, even if people like Epps made it constantly clear that they didn't deserve it.

"This whole game was to have us kill someone?" Bones asked, his partner apparently ignorant of his attention or thoughts as he looked at her.

"Who's going to tell Lappin's mom?" Epps asked, nothing on his face but a morbid curiosity that once again reminded Booth of expressions he'd felt his face assuming as Angelus; even the sympathetic tone of his voice was too mocking to ever be considered remotely sincere. "She loves him very much, you know. Without her son, she'll be completely alone in this sad world."

Nothing the sudden sympathy on Bones's face, Booth stepped forward firmly; he _wasn't _going to let his partner feel regret for killing someone who'd been willing to torture an innocent girl for kicks.

"We're done with you," he said, refusing to continue this conversation as he glanced down at his partner, wanting to get her away from this monster's presence. "You're never going to see us again; come on."

"I'm pretty sure you're wrong about that, Agent Booth," Epps said as Bones got up to leave after a last hard stare at the serial killer.

Stuck for ideas about the best way to verbally respond to that statement, Booth simply glared at the other man for a few moments before he followed her out of the room, leaving one of the few living men he'd ever met who was as twisted as Angelus to his lifetime sentence.

If he never saw that bastard again, he'd consider himself lucky...

* * *

Looking at Bones as she sat in the upper level of the lab that night, hunched over on a couch with a glass in her hand, Booth couldn't recall the last time he'd seen his partner so shaken.

She'd had to deal with a lot when she'd learned the truth about her parents, but none of that had really changed who _she _was; she'd just had to definitively kill another living being and face up to the part of herself that was capable of something like that...

"Vodka?" he asked, maintaining a slight distance in case she preferred solitude right now but remaining close in case she wanted company.

"It's water," Bones replied, shaking her glass slightly to indicate the ice inside it. "But it's on the rocks."

"You know, Bones, I'm not sure you grasp the basic theory on how to get drunk," Booth said, wincing as he hung his coat over his injured arm before pulling up a chair and sitting down in it as he continued to speak. "What you need to do is order a shot of hard liquor from a barman named Shaky, and tell him to, uh, leave the bottle in the bar."

"I'm fine, Booth," Bones said, even as he stared at her, Booth simply nodding slightly in an idly indulgent manner at her oh-too-casual tone. "I'm sitting here thinking about it, and... I'm fine."

"OK," Booth said, looking thoughtfully at her. "So what I'm gettin' from you here, Bones, is that you're fine."

He didn't need his years of experience of human nature to know that Bones was anything but fine, but he simply sat and looked at her as she reached over to pick up a photograph of Sarah Koskoff from the investigation file that they'd been consulting earlier.

"He murdered Sarah," Bones said, as she looked at the photograph. "He was about to murder Helen. You know, why should I feel upset about shooting him? You know, I mean, if I was going to be upset, which I'm not… it would be because Epps thinks he beat us, so-"

"He didn't," Booth said.

"I know," Bones said, looking down as she spoke.

"You're upset because you think he beat us," Booth said, letting Bones look up at him as he nodded in resolution, as though having just come to a decision. "You know what? He did."

"Beat us?" Bones asked, looking at him in surprise.

"Yeah," Booth confirmed.

"Well, you just said that he didn't," Bones said, looking at him in confusion.

"Well, I changed my mind," Booth said.

"What, in the last three seconds?" Bones asked, looking at him in shock.

"You know, you're afraid that Epps turned you into him; into a killer," Booth said, looking firmly at his partner as she looked at him, a vulnerability about her manner that he had never seen her express; quite frankly, in this moment, she reminded him more of Fred and Willow in the early days of his friendship with them, rather than the Buffy or Cordelia-esque confidence she'd always demonstrated in the past. "You have to... come to grips with the fact that you killed another human being."

He paused for a moment as he looked down, lost in his memories of his own past sins; he'd never killed as Liam, and he'd more than paid for any responsibility he might bear for Angelus's crimes- he was still the person who'd let Darla turn him, even if he couldn't have known what she was offering-, but the questionable things he'd done as Angel, to say nothing of the people he'd killed as Booth...

"Because when you kill someone," he continued, looking back at her solemnly, "you know, there's a cost. It's a steep cost. I know. I've done it."

He'd done it so many times he sometimes didn't know how he'd ever manage to feel like his hands were clean again, but what he'd done in the past in no way compared to what Doctor Temperance Brennan had done to Gil Lappin, and she needed to understand that.

"I did the right thing," Bones said after a moment's reflection, her tone weary despite the positive nature of the statement.

"I know," Booth said, looking her in the eye as she looked back at him, the faint gleam of tears in her eyes, the woman who had always been so strong unconsciously seeking reassurance about the rightness of her actions as they exchanged brief smiles. "I was there."

"Oh," Bones said, looking down shamefully as a tear fell on the photograph that she was still holding. "Look what I did."

"It doesn't matter," Booth said, looking solemnly at her.

"It does," Bone said, and Booth knew she wasn't just talking about the teardrop. "It matters."

Looking at her, Booth knew that it was going to take his partner a while to reach full comfort with what she'd done, but progress was being made; as with everything worthwhile, the journey was necessary so that the end result could be appreciated, but Bones was never one to back down from the hard road.

_Of course_, he thought to himself, as he felt the small plastic pig in his pocket, _that doesn't mean I can't remind her of she is before anything else..._


	28. The Truth in the Lye

Disclaimer: I own neither Angel or anything associated with him, and "Bones" is equally out of my reach control-wise

Feedback: Appreciated

Angel of the Bones

As crime scenes went, Booth was sometimes surprised that construction sites weren't something he visited more regularly; plenty of potential murder weapons, various locations to dump the body, and generally they were so open that it would be hard for anyone to really track down the murderer in the aftermath...

"Sorry if I interrupted anything," Bones said as the two of them walked into the site- he wondered if she'd just kept quiet about it earlier out of some sense of respecting his wishes-, Bones already wearing a blue hat while he carried a yellow one.

"What?" Booth said, trying not to think about what she actually had interrupted- somehow, Rebecca was one of those human aspects that he was never sure about; he enjoyed the ability to not worry about his curse, but it just felt somehow empty when he _knew _it wasn't going to go too far even when it had the potential to be more- as he looked at her while fiddling with the mask and helmet he'd been provided with. "Oh! No, no, you didn't."

"Good," Bones said.

"OK," Booth said, feeling a sudden need to clarify the situation at the sight of his partner's smile. "But if you must know, you know, Rebecca, my ex… she stopped by my place to pick up a comic that I got Parker."

"OK," Bones said, still smiling.

"She just so happened to pick up the phone," Booth said, already feeling stupid for saying this but hoping it would be enough for the socially-ignorant Doctor Temperance Brennan. "That's it, you know? Nothing more, nothing less."

"I'm sorry," Bones said, as they turned a corner to enter the building, a bored tone to her voice. "Did I say I must know?"

As they walked into an unfinished bathroom in an equally unfinished condominium, Booth's thoughts on further protest ended as the stench coming from the bathtub in the middle of the room hit his nostrils, a closer look at the tub revealing a thick-looking brown liquid that put whatever response Booth might have made to that statement out of his head, a pale leg sticking out and various pieces floating in the tube that could have been human body parts even if Booth couldn't immediately identify which bit was which.

"Ooh, very nice," he said, groaning as he pulled on a mask even as Bones pulled out a tape recorder.

"Age and sex undetermined," Bone said, pausing to sniff the material in front of her as she spoke. "Victim is immersed in a pool of... what smells like a composite of domestic corrosives-"

"It smells more like, uh-" Booth began.

"Common drain declogger, acid wash, bleach," Bones interjected (It was probably for the best; the only things Booth could compare the scent to didn't exist in Bones's scientific world). "Submerged two to three days."

"All right," Booth said, taking the mask off now that his nose had adjusted to the reek- as a vampire, you had to adapt to bad smells fairly quickly since you were aware of so many that the average human would never really notice- as he indicated the tub, "are you saying that he's been here all weekend just dissolving?"

"Allowing the killer time for the corrosives to do their thing," Bones said, her tone contemplative as she circled the tub.

"Excuse me, can I get in here, please?" a man said from behind Booth, the agent turning around to look at a tanned man with slightly curly black hair in a brown leather jacket and pale shirt, looking impatiently back at him. "Yeah, I'm Pete Valero. I'm the development contractor."

"OK," Booth said, nodding in acknowledgement of the other man's identification of himself.

"Yeah," Valero said as he walked into the room. "I came as soon as-"

The sight of the tub bubbling left Valero turning around to vomit into the still-unfinished sink; evidently, whether human or vampire, Booth still had a stronger stomach than the average man.

"There could be evidence in there," Bones said, pointing at Valero and the sink.

"I'd say most of it's right in there," Booth pointed out, his attention focused on the tub.

"I'll need Zack to help me extract the remains and whatever else is beneath the surface," Bones continued, her attention back on the case

"Wouldn't it be a lot easier if we took the whole tub?" Booth asked, shrugging as he indicated the object in question; it would be heavy, but it didn't strike him as something they couldn't handle…

"No, no, no, wait," Valero said (Why was it people could get sick when discussing death but be perfectly willing to discuss what Booth was certain would be a financial matter?). "That- that tub is a- is a Godive 3000. These things aren't cheap."

"Oh, do you think anybody is actually gonna want this Godive 3000 after this?" Booth asked.

"Well, would they have to know?" Valero asked, prompting a scoff from Bones that Booth only didn't mimic out of his desire to maintain a degree of professionalism. "Look, I'm just saying, with subsidized housing, the government wants every nickel accounted for."

"I'll get you a receipt," Booth said, looking at the man as another line of questioning occurred to him, "if you can tell me why the boss of the job is just showing up right now."

"I was at the dentist," Valero said, looking at Booth before his gaze shifted to the tub. "I got a call in the middle of a root canal. Who knew I'd be better off there?"

"Do you know who this is?" Booth asked, pointing at the tub (A long shot, considering the visible state of the body, but he felt obliged to ask).

"How would I know?" Valero asked, as Bones pulled on gloves and began to examine the tub's contents using various tongs that probably had some technical name Booth wasn't immediately remembering. "I got over two hundred workers on this site alone… not to mention all the kids and the- the vandals coming through here on the weekend."

His attempted defence was cut short when he turned to look at the tub, just as Bones pulled out something that Booth didn't need his training to identify as skin without anything inside it.

"Oh my God..." Valero said, turning away with a sick expression as he ran towards the door.

"Oh God," Booth groaned, as the man who was moving onto the suspects list began to leave the scene.

"Bones!" he said, glaring at his partner before he looked at Valero, indicating the basic 'corridor' outside the unfinished door. "Wait out there."

"It's only skin," Bones said, holding up the object with the tongs. "OK, I'll need that window, a forklift, and a flatbed."

"Why?" Booth asked.

"You called it," Bones said, tapping the tub for clarification. "We want answers, the tub is coming with us."

As she pulled out what seemed to be a person's hair after they'd been literally scalped, Booth tried not to remember the last time he'd faced something capable of reducing a grown man to nothing but loose skin.

He might have eventually managed to adjust to the idea that he'd fall victim to old age eventually after beginning his life as Seeley Booth, but what Marcus Roscoe had done to others still left him feeling sick; innocent young men, sacrificed in the name of nothing more than Marcus's pathetic desire to recapture his youth...

If this was anything like what he'd dealt with then, he really wasn't looking forward to this case; he wasn't sure he'd be able to resist the temptation to punch whoever was responsible for killing off young men because he couldn't accept that his glory days had passed, and that was assuming that they could find a 'legitimate' reason to suspect whoever was behind this without bringing magic into it.

* * *

"I was not gossiping," Bones said, as she examined something under a microscope back in the Jeffersonian's forensic lab, Booth reclining in a chair to take advantage of the temporary opportunity to get off his feet while the victim's bones lay on a table beside her.

"Oh, really?" he said, looking sceptically at her. "So then what would you call it?"

"Merely sharing a point of interest," Bones said.

"Great," Booth said, standing up and walking towards her. "So now what am I, huh? The world's largest ball of string?"

"Not you, your behaviour," Bones said, lifting her head up from the microscope to turn and look at him with that same almost blank expression that made him so frustrated at times; she never seemed to understand why what she was saying would get on others' nerves. "It was a textbook example of just how helpless we higher primates can be to our biological urges."

"I am not helpless," Booth said, wishing that he didn't find himself suddenly thinking of how things had been with Buffy after he returned from Hell; that had been hard because they'd been unable to give themselves one single perfect night to make up for the last one, _not _because they'd been unable to control their hormones!

OK, so he'd enjoyed the relationship with Nina because it had been easier to deal with the whole mess going on in his life with a pleasant, relatively innocent person to spend time with who knew what he was and accepted him without making him _too _happy, but sex hadn't been _that _big a deal about it…

"He's not elderly," Bones said, as she turned her attention back to the microscope.

"I can control my- who?" Booth asked, his initial protest forgotten when faced with Bones's sudden change of topic.

"Our victim," Bones explained, stepping back from the microscope to indicate the display on the attached screen that meant virtually nothing to Booth (Cell structures and modern art were so confusing he sometimes got the two mixed up even after over a year of regular contact with the Jeffersonian staff). "You see these marrow cells? The lack of collagen indicates osteogenesis imperfecta. Brittle bone disease."

"And that's supposed to tell me he's not... old?" Booth asked; to him, it sounded like it could indicate exactly that.

"Not necessarily," Bones clarified, before her expression suddenly became curious. "And if you're not helpless, then why did you sleep with her?"

"Oh, I really don't recall saying that I did," Booth countered before he could stop himself (He should have just ignored that statement and tried to stay on topic), trying to keep his voice low to avoid attracting too much attention to this conversation.

"You didn't have to," Bones said, her voice at its regular volume as she smiled at him. "I could hear it in your voice. I might as well as walked in on you having sex."

"You didn't and we weren't," Booth said, turning around to walk away before this got any more frustrating.

"Well, it's nothing to be ashamed of, Booth," Bones said, clearly not interpreting his signal to end this discussion, forming him to turn around and smile at her out of a lack of any alternative responses he could make as his partner continued speaking. "Humans act upon a hierarchy of needs, and sex is very highly ranked. It's an anthropological inevitability."

"Thank you, Bones," Booth said, looking at her in exasperation, "I really appreciate you boiling me down to your anthropological inevitabilities."

"Sure," Bones said, her slightly confused expression at least suggesting she was aware that he wasn't happy even if she wasn't clear on what to do about it.

"Any time," Booth said.

"You know," Bones said, her attention back on the case, "if our victim had brittle bone, there could be a web site of some kind. He might have been listed."

It wasn't one of his strong areas of research, but at least it was something that he could look into without needing to be in a position where he'd potentially have to continue this awkward conversation.

* * *

"Unbelievable," Bones said, as the two of them walked out of the interrogation room after the last interview with Larry Turner/Seaver/whatever's two wives and one mistress.

"Yeah, you got that right," Booth said, glad to find himself in agreement with his partner on what would clearly be a key part of the case. "You know what? They're lying."

"How do you know?" Bones asked, as they began to walk along the corridor

"Oh, come on," Booth said. "They've been lying since day one. Between all of them, they should have a dozen Oscars by now."

"I know what those are," Bones said, pointing in understanding at him.

"I mean, come on, _suicide_?" Booth asked, as they began to walk away from the interrogation room and down the corridor towards Booth's office. "Bird shot, or not, okay, every self-inflicted I've seen, the guy shoots himself, and he drops the gun. Right? It's an automatic reaction. Bang, drop. There's no way the gun ends up in his mouth."

"Then we'd better go dig up that gun," Bones said.

"Seeley," a familiar voice said, prompting Booth to turn and look at Rebecca as she walked towards them, dressed in a dark dress as she smiled at him.

"I'll get the ball rolling," Bones said, before she turned to walk along the corridor, leaving Booth to look awkwardly at the mother of his child.

"Was that Doctor Brennan?" Rebecca asked, a slight edge to her voice that made it clear that she knew who he'd just been talking to and had said that just to break the ice.

"Uh-huh," Booth said, focusing his mind on the most relevant issue right now. "Why are you here?"

"I needed to know if you were going to coach Parker's T-ball team this year," Rebecca replied.

"You know I always coach Parker's T-ball team," Booth said; he didn't need her initial uncertainty to know that she was lying about that being the reason for her presence here.

"I didn't want to assume-" Rebecca began.

"OK, whoa; what is going on here, Rebecca?" Booth asked, pulling her into the nearby empty conference room, closing the door behind them before resuming the conversation. "Because, look, I thought we agreed here; we cannot end up groping each other in the FBI closet. We can't do that. We're done."

"I know," Rebecca said.

"Really?" Booth replied, actually surprised at the directness of the statement; he'd been so prepared for an argument he actually wasn't sure what to do now that there wasn't going to be one.

"Seeley, all the excuses I gave you for not wanting to get married…my independence, your work…" Rebecca began.

"I know," Booth said, not wanting to give her the chance to finish that sentence; he had always known that he wasn't father material after all the mistakes he'd made when raising Connor, no matter how enthusiastically he'd tried to make up for them with Parker…

"No, you don't," Rebecca said, looking at him with a solemn yet satisfied expression on her face that somehow relaxed all of Booth's fears even as she spoke. "You are a wonderful father. And Parker is a lucky kid. Such a lucky kid."

Booth had no idea what to say to that; after the lengths he'd had to go through to try and save Connor from his own mistakes, to hear that he _could _be a good father to anyone…

"And obviously, we still have feelings for each other…" Rebecca said, her voice trailing off as she looked at him with a slightly seductive smile. "Do you still wanna marry me?"

"Rebecca…" Booth said, looking at her for a moment, suddenly lost in his memories of what could have been, the possibilities that had ended so long ago…

He couldn't do it.

They'd had a good relationship, but he would have been involved with her for all the wrong reasons, and he would be restarting it for those same wrong reasons; Rebecca deserved to be loved for herself, rather than loved by a man who had started the relationship because he was seeking to redefine his identity and was reminded of his 'type'.

"No," he said, the silence that had settled over them needing to be dispelled. "I don't."

"I don't want to marry you either," Rebecca said, inclining her head in acknowledgement of the deeper meaning behind this conversation, the two staring silently at each other for a moment before Rebecca reached into her bag and took out a small sheet of paper. "Here are the forms for T-Ball. I'll miss you."

"Yeah," Booth said, understanding what she meant. "And I'm gonna miss you too."

"You know what I'm gonna miss the most?" Rebecca asked, the hint of a smile on her lips as she tilted her head at him.

"Yeah," Booth said. "But let's not go there."

As Rebecca left, a smile on her face, Booth leaned against the door as he looked after her, a smile fighting to emerge on his face as he contemplated what they'd just discussed.

He _was _a good father…

Somehow, more than the satisfaction of knowing that their complicated relationship had finally achieved a kind of definition that he had been looking for ever since she rejected his proposal.

* * *

"So, you never said how it ended up with Rebecca," Bones asked, Booth sitting in her office as she looked over a file.

"Well, yeah, it ended," Booth said, looking away from his partner; now that he had to discuss it, he wasn't entirely sure how to best phrase it. "The only time we'll ever spend together is with Parker."

"You sure that's what you want?" Bones asked, looking at him as she put the file down on her desk.

"You know what, Bones?" Booth said, looking back at her as she walked around the desk to look thoughtfully at him. "It might be all anthropology to you, but there are certain people that you just can't sleep with."

He found himself initially remembering Darla, but he pushed that aside; saving her had been about a deranged belief that he was redeeming himself by redeeming her, not because he just wanted to have sex with her.

"I mean, you can pretend that it's just sex," he said, recalling some of the times he'd tried to convince himself to risk it all for a last night with Buffy and all of the arguments he'd used to stop himself. "You can lie to yourself, and you can say that it's all good. But, um, there's just- There's too many strings and- and too much at stake, you know? Too much to lose."

"Yeah," Bones said, smiling slightly in acknowledgement of some kind of understanding. "I can see that."

"It's over, you know?" he said, standing up from the couch that he'd been sitting on. "I'd appreciate, you know, your support in that."

"I will," Bones said, after a moment's silence as she apparently processed the request. "And if you should slip, I will… keep my mouth shut about it."

"Thank you," Booth said. "But, I mean, it's not like I'm gonna-"

"No, I mean with anybody," Bones clarified. "I'm sure Rebecca's not your only option for satisfying your biological urges."

The subsequent eye contact was broken when Angela and Hodgins walked into the office, saving Booth from having to analyse that 'moment' in more depth than it might deserve.

"Please tell me these women are not going to jail," Angela asked, looking in frustration at the two of them as though they were personally responsible for whatever sentence the women would receive for simply discovering the body of the man who'd been cheating on all of them.

"After trying to bilk the insurance system, I imagine they'll get nothing less than a firing squad," Hodgins said firmly.

"Not if they never filed a claim," Angela protested.

"Because our friends here caught them," Hodgins pointed out.

"Well, you're both kinda right," Booth said, feeling inexplicably awkward at the interruption (He wasn't feeling this way because of _that_; it would just make everything too complicated). "Given their kids and the circumstances, the D.A. is gonna offer probation provided that all three women show remorse and attend mandatory counselling."

"In exchange for movie rights, I hope," Hodgins said, grinning over at Angela. "You know they're gonna get calls."

"I hope so," Angela said, Hodgins walking away as Angela turned her attention to Booth with a slight smile. "Hey, nice going by the way; Cam tells me you're back with your ex."

"Cam," Booth said; somehow, he had a feeling that 'Cam' hadn't been the one to reveal that particular item of trivia.

"Mmm," Angela said, nodding at him with a slight smile.

"Cam in her office?" he asked, getting up and leaving the room before the atmosphere could become any more awkward.

He wasn't sure how this upcoming conversation was going to go down, but he had a good feeling about this upcoming turn of events…


	29. The Girl in Suite 2103

Disclaimer: I own neither Angel or anything associated with him, and "Bones" is equally out of my reach control-wise

Feedback: Appreciated

Angel of the Bones

"Special Agent Booth," the familiar voice of Alex Radswell said as he walked up to them, the short man's commanding presence somehow still managing to draw Booth's attention despite the devastation around them matching what he'd witnessed in some of the grimmer parts of Hell, "and I'm going to assume this is Doctor Brennan?"

"Bones," Booth said, looking at his partner as he indicated the new arrival, "Alex Radswell; he's, uh, from State Department."

"Why'd you say it like that?" Bones asked, even as Booth tried to avoid further questions by glancing at his notes; he tried to avoid it, but even if Radswell wasn't intimidating, he was good at making people feel uncomfortable.

"Booth believes the State Department was put on Earth to protect bad guys from the FBI," Radswell said with a slight smile.

"I count three dead?" Bones asked, shining her flashlight around the room.

"Four," Radswell corrected. "There's one behind the bar, already ID'd as the bartender. This was a cocktail party after a conference on drug trafficking in South America. The keynote speaker was Colombian judicial attaché Dolores Ramos."

"Did she survive?" Bones asked, glancing around the room.

"Minor burns, smoke inhalation," Radswell said dismissively. "She'll be fine. Luck of the draw."

"You seem uncomfortable," Bones said, looking at Booth as she indicated Radswell (Why was it that his partner could never be socially unobservant when it _mattered_?). "Does his size make you self-conscious?"

"Bones…" Booth said, once again regretting his partner's tactlessness; there were times he found the reminder to Cordelia comforting, and other times- particularly when he was already in an awkward situation- when it really got on his nerves.

"It's a condition; skeletal dysplasia," Bones said, before looking curiously at Radswell. "Pseudoachondroplasia or S.E.D. congenita?"

"Bones!" Booth said, hissing her as Radswell stared at her in a nonplussed manner, clearly uncertain if he was being mocked.

"Doctor Brennan," Radswell said, taking advantage of the brief distraction as Bones turned to look at Booth, "I can see that you're a straightforward person, and as much as I appreciate that quality, what you're asking me is neither your business nor relevant."

"But it's my business because I'm a forensic anthropologist," Bones replied, before she turned her attention back to the room. "But you're right, it's not relevant."

"So, what happened here?" Booth asked, eager to get back to the central topic; even without his uncomfortable memories of how judging by appearances had caused him to kill a demon champion, he just wasn't in the mood to discuss unusual appearances. "Bomb?"

"The blast came from the room next door," Radswell said, indicating the corner of the room where some of the FBI techs were working. "Your people are working on the cause right now."

"I'm betting Colombian drug types," Cam said, as she entered from the hole in the wall leading to the other room. "They just love blowing people up."

"Before she was attached to the embassy, Dolores Ramos was a prosecutor in Bogota," Radswell said- Booth took a moment to glance at Cam and suddenly found himself feeling awkward as she smiled at him-, the ex-vampire continuing to take notes. "She had plenty of enemies in the cartels."

"You ID anyone else beside the bartender?" Booth asked.

"Hector Madure," Radswell said, indicating the body of a dark-skinned man just behind him. "Chief of police from Quito, Ecuador."

"I brought you in to confirm the identity of his wife," Cam said, holding up a photo. "She's the extra crispy one."

"Father Gabriel Ruiz," Radswell said, pointing at another body as Bones walked over to join Cam. "He ran a drug program for kids in Bogota."

"Well, you know, it's a big score for the drug cartels," Booth said, looking thoughtfully at the bodies. "Any one of these people, you know, make a good target."

"I'm gonna check on the conditions of the survivors," Radswell said, as he indicated a less damaged part of the room. "You need anything, just holler."

"Will do," Booth said, before walking over to where his partner was examining the body she'd been brought in to look at; hopefully they could get this case sorted out and be on their way before he had to spend longer dealing with the State Department than was absolutely necessary…

* * *

"Lisa wasn't scheduled to work last night," Denise said, the other waitress proving to be a potentially useful witness even if Booth wondered what it said about a hotel where their bar could be mistaken for a nightclub. "She just came in on her own as a customer, picked up a guy."

"You know anything about him?" Booth asked; the sooner he could work out whether the extra victim in that bomb had been the focus of the blast or an unfortunate additional casualty, the happier he'd be.

"Looked Hispanic," Denise said uncertainly. "That's not P.C. to say, but you want details, right?"

Booth hummed in response; he wasn't officially condoning the word choice, but he appreciated the additional clue it provided them with.

"And it looked like he had money too," Denise added.

"How tall was he?" Booth asked.

"I don't know, he was sitting down when I saw him," Denise said, her tone apologetic, before she looked more thoughtfully at them. "Look, Lisa was a good kid, but she used to scope the place for rich guys."

"So she was a prostitute," Bones said.

"What?" Denise said, looking at the anthropologist in shock. "No, no. She was just like any of us."

"Looking for a husband, right?" Booth asked in understanding.

"This guy last night," Denise continued after a brief pause. "she zoned in on him real hard. Took him upstairs, you know, for privacy."

"Upstairs where?" Booth asked.

"The room that was being renovated," Denise clarified. "The one that caught on fire. I mean, it's against the rules, but we've all done it."

"Right," Booth said, chuckling slightly at the memory; no matter where he went, there was always _one _rule of the workplace that people were willing to break so long as they timed it properly…

"I mean, why else work in a high-class place like this, right?" Denise said with a slightly flirtatious smile.

"Yeah," Booth said, reminded of some of his old cases in Los Angeles; sometimes, even if it was crap, people would take any job so long as they could find the right perks (He recalled one time he'd spent a few months delivering pizzas in the early seventies as Angel, appreciating the fact that it allowed him to work nights and be on his own).

"Someone's trying to flag you down," Bones said, prompting Denise to turn as the bartender called her name again, apologising briefly to them before she walked away to return to work.

"Looks like it's possible that Lisa went upstairs for a little quickie and, uh, wandered into a nightmare," Booth said, looking over at Bones as he rapped thoughtfully on the table.

"She was trying to get you to go upstairs for a little…" Bones replied, knocking on the table and whistling; Booth was only saved from replying when Denise came back to their table

"Hey," she said, indicating a guy walking across the bar behind them, "that's the guy that Lisa was with."

Following the indicated direction, Booth noticed a young man walking across towards the bar, wearing dark trousers and a vertically striped shirt with dark hair and Hispanic features.

"Yeah, he looks like he can be six feet tall," Bones said.

"What do you say we go pay him a little visit?" Booth suggested, the two walking over to the bar where the guy was now sitting before he could have a chance to move.

"Mind if we ask you a few questions?" Bones asked, leaning against the bar alongside their new suspect.

"Oh, well," the man said, grinning back at her, "lose your friend, and maybe."

"It's about Lisa Winnaker," Bones clarified.

With that statement, the man slowly turned around in his seat before he practically leapt off it and began to run. Booth tackled him to the ground with relative ease, only for his temporary elation to be cut short when he heard the sound of a gun being cocked behind him; evidently, whoever this guy was, he'd brought a friend.

"OK," he said, quickly halting his attack on the downed man- dealing with the armed enemy was always the more sensible call- as he slowly got to his feet, the gun up against his neck as the suspect began to crawl away. "It's cool, man, it's all good…"

With the armed man lulled into a temporary sense of security, Booth spun around to grab the arm with the gun and knock it aside, forcing the guard back as he took the gun from his hand before pulling out his own weapon and handing it to Bones, their suspect once again on the ground after his partner had halted his attempts to get back up.

"My name is Antonio Ramos!" the man they'd initially confronted said, looking at them with an anxious edge to his voice. "Call the Colombian embassy; I have diplomatic immunity!"

Looking at the man they'd just knocked down, the faint trace of a smirk on his face at that statement, Booth groaned at this latest turn of events.

They finally get a lead, and they were going to be unable to follow it up due to the damn mess of diplomatic immunity (Booth had no reason to doubt that story; anyone who just wanted to buy time to get away would make up a far trickier story to confirm or deny than diplomatic immunity)?

He _really _missed the days when he dealt with monsters that wouldn't have known the meaning of that kind of crap (If it hadn't been so terrifying, the idea of some of Wolfram & Hart's clients trying to get away from him by claiming diplomatic immunity would have been rather amusing; he somehow doubted that extended to the kind of demons he'd run into back then)…

* * *

"A woman like Judge Ramos, who stood up to the drug cartels, who always did the right thing… it's hard to imagine her killing another human being," Bones said, looking thoughtfully at him as they sat at their usual table in the diner, turning over the recent evidence in their minds as they ate their food.

"Bones, she's a strong woman; that's why she stood up to the cartels, and lived on after her daughter was killed," Booth said, once again uncomfortably reminded of Bones's previous statement about good people being incapable of murder. "Hey, look, her point of view… Lisa Winnaker was threatening her family, so she snapped."

"Will she get away with it?" Bones asked.

"Yeah," Booth said, nodding as he sipped at his coffee. "I think she will."

"OK," Cam said, walking up to them placing a file on the table before she sat down alongside Bones, looking between them with a direct manner. "We all got together- well, Zack wouldn't help until I threatened him-, but the rest of us…"

By way of explanation, she opened the file she had brought with her, showing various contents including a photograph of Antonio in an elevator.

"The blowback patterns shows that Lisa Winnaker's killer was six feet tall," Cam explained. Antonio Ramos is six feet tall. Lisa Winnaker had sex immediately before her demise, DNA tests show it was with Antonio Ramos. Lisa Winnaker was strangled with a silk ligature, Antonio Ramos favours silk ties."

"Why are you manipulating the facts to make it sound like Antonio was the killer?" Bones interjected, looking at Cam in confusion.

"No, it's OK, Bones," Booth said, looking solemnly at Cam. "Let her- let her continue."

He had a few ideas about where she was going with this, but he'd prefer to hear it from Cam before he made any snap judgements; he'd learned the value of not doing those the hard way…

"Because of his broken arm, Antonio Ramos was forced to place his foot on Lisa Winnaker's back, damaging her vertebrae," Cam continued, indicating an X-ray.

"You are fabricating a scenario by misrepresenting the evidence and omitting key facts," Bones objected.

"It's a bluff," Cam said. "Cops do it all the time."

"So you think if we frame Antonio, Judge Ramos will confess to save her own son," Booth said, looking thoughtfully at Cam.

"What mother wouldn't?" Cam asked.

Booth had to admit, it certainly fit most of the mothers in his experience; even Darla had died to save her son in the end…

"Bones?" he asked, looking over at his partner.

"No," Bones said firmly. "No."

"It's no different than lying to a criminal to get a confession," Cam said.

"Or having Hodgins call the FAA with a fake terrorism tip," Booth noted, smiling slightly at Bones.

"He did what?" Cam asked, looking sharply at Booth.

"Oh, what?" Booth said, looking back at Cam. "Now, suddenly, there's a line here?"

"You can't allow this," Bones said, looking indignantly at him.

"I'm a hundred percent against it," Booth said; his mind had been made up when Cam started speaking- he'd made too many moral compromises as Angel, and didn't want to make any more unless he was certain it was required-, but he'd wanted to give her a chance to state her case before he dismissed it completely.

"Seeley, you hate diplomatic immunity," Cam said, looking incredulously at him.

"Well," Booth said- another difference between his life as Booth and his life as Angel; he'd had to bend the rules when he was running Wolfram & Hart, but these days he had to acknowledge and appreciate some of the rules on the larger scale even if he found them inconvenient personally-, "I'm against it when it's interfering with my murder investigation, but the world's bigger than that."

"What are you talking about?" Bones asked.

"We cheat diplomatic immunity here in DC, we catch a murderer, that's great," Booth said (Potential political backlash; another thing he had to worry about more as Booth than he ever had as Angel, particularly since he didn't have Gunn to help him apologise for some of the faux pas that could have ruined everything when he'd slipped up during his time at Wolfram & Hart). "They do it in 'Upper Kamikazestan' and our boys end up on a red-hot spit over a slow fire."

"There's no such place as 'Kamikazestan'," Bones pointed out.

"OK," Booth said- he'd try and spare the time to give Bones a refresher course in sarcasm later-, "bottom line is, we ignore diplomatic immunity and the rest of the world finds out, it's open season on Americans. So you know what?" he said, reaching over to pick up the file Cam had brought, "thanks for the effort and the fake file," he continued speaking as he tore it in half, "but let's just remember, all right?"

He tossed the torn file into a passing bin and looked firmly at Cam. "We're the good guys. Oh, I'm gonna need that real evidence file too."

"OK," Cam said, getting up and leaving the diner, leaving Booth to look at Bones.

He'd need to remember to talk with her about this particular turn of events when things were over; judging by that stare, she was _not _happy with what Cam had suggested they do…

* * *

Looking at Bones as she leant against the railing on the Jeffersonian's upper lounge, Booth wished that this whole case could have been resolved in a smoother manner than it had been; this mess with Cam contemplating faking evidence hadn't exactly helped the still-tentative relationship Bones was developing with her new boss.

"Well," Booth said, walking over to stand beside her as he looked at their team, examining their latest body on the main table of the lab, "look at 'em down there, huh? Heh! Probably falsifying evidence."

"I'm not sure I can totally trust Doctor Saroyan after that," Bones said, her expression the neutral one she always assumed when she didn't know how to process what she was feeling.

"You know, Bones," Booth said, feeling obligated to voice Cam's perspective in her absence, "Cam's a cop at heart. She, uh… she just wants to catch the bad guys. There are a lot of grey areas."

"Not for you," Bones said, with the straightforward simplicity that reminded Booth why he liked being Booth; he might still need to find the occasional compromise, but at least he could avoid those grey areas of letting certain criminals go free so that he could continue to deal with others. "You did the right thing."

"Yeah, it worked out, is all," Booth said, trying not to smile at the compliment; something about Bones's simple perspective on his actions really made him feel better about himself.

"You did the right thing," Bones repeated, looking solemnly at him.

Booth could only smile in response to that simple statement, with the smile becoming slightly broader when he turned around to see two men in suits approaching the lab platform.

"Uh, oh," Booth said, as the men walked towards Hodgins, one showing the entomologist his badge; evidently the fake terrorism 'tip' was being followed up on.

"Shouldn't we do something?" Bones asked.

"Are you kidding?" Booth said, allowing himself a grin as the men took Hodgins by the arms, the entomologist looking up at them with a slight smile on his face as he was led away by the new arrivals. "Hodgins being abducted by men in black? That's a dream come true."

It might be a weird fantasy for any man to have, but considering some of the things Booth had fantasised about when he was Angelus, he wasn't exactly going to criticise Hodgins for something this minor; at least Hodgins' dreams didn't hurt anyone else.

They'd solved the case, caught the killer, and managed to deal with the frustrations of diplomatic immunity; all in all, it hadn't been a bad day.


	30. The Girl With the Curl

Disclaimer: I own neither Angel or anything associated with him, and "Bones" is equally out of my reach control-wise

Feedback: Appreciated

Angel of the Bones

"OK," Angela said, entering variables into the computer based on their analysis of their latest victim as the rest of the team stood around her, "this is the colour she would've had from the bleaching."

"I think the alkaloids would make the colour brighter," Hodgins said, leaning over to examine the image on the screen more closely, the hair colour in the image shifting as Angela made the appropriate modifications to her program.

"OK, so some twisted psycho killer gives this little girl a makeover before he kills her?" Booth asked, only for his glance at the rest of the team to confirm his darkest thoughts; someone had made this little girl go through all this _before_ she'd been targeted by her killer.

"I hate working with kids," Angela said, beating anyone else to whatever response they might have made to Booth's comment. "Childhood should be all about swings."

It was a simple sentence, but it brought back so many memories for Booth.

It wasn't like he was one of those old-fashioned parents who thought that the old ways were best- he might have seen the way things had been when children had to rely on themselves for their entertainment, but he wasn't going to deny the benefits of technology as well-, but he still appreciated the simple moment in life, and distant memories of taking Kathy out on horse-rides when they'd had days to spare, sitting in a meadow sketching while she made daisy-chains…

"Swings?" Zack asked, even as Hodgins looked contemplative as he considered Angela's comment.

"Yeah," Angela said, her tone simple and direct. "You know, how high can I go? If I twist the chains, how fast will I spin?"

"What if I try to jump off before the swing stops?" Hodgins asked, smiling at Angela with a warm tone to his voice that Booth rarely heard from the entomologist.

"Exactly," Angela said, grinning back at him.

"I miss that feeling," Hodgins said wistfully.

"Yeah, me too," Angela confirmed, Booth smiling thoughtfully at the memories evoked by their comments of days when he'd had far less to worry about…

"I miss organic chemistry class," Bones said, a fond smile on her face even as the work-related nature of her statement partially undermined the earlier discussion. "Those were good times."

"I miss my first microscope," Zack put in, a serious tone to his voice.

"Great, yeah, and I miss normal people," Booth said, shaking his head and raising his eyebrows; he appreciated their effort to contribute, but they seemed to be missing the point about what Angela had been trying to say. "Can we go on?"

"Factor in the teeth," Bones said, Angela enlarging the relevant area of the portrait as the teeth displayed were elonogated and brightened accordingly.

"Yeah, you know," Booth said, unable to restrain a grimace at the sight; he was slightly reminded of how his own teeth had shifted whenever he went 'vamp face'. "Cause, uh, this isn't weird enough…"

"Hodgins supplied the types of make-up," Angela commented, adding the relevant colour to the girl's face, including lipstick and eye-shadow, before changing the hairstyle to an upright perm of some sort that was more dramatic than anything Booth had seen on a child before. "And that's what we've got."

"She looks thirty," Booth said, sceptically studying the image before him; he'd heard of some killers making their victims dress up as part of their 'games', but he still didn't get it.

"OK," Bones said, "run the image against the database now."

As Angela clicked a few buttons, the on-screen image was rapidly compared to a series of scans of childrens' pictures, until it came to a stop on a picture of a girl dressed in pink with an even more outlandish hair-style than the one on the computer.

"Oh my God," Cam said. "That's Brianna Swanson."

"Who?" Bones asked.

"Little beauty queen who disappeared a few months ago," Booth quietly informed his partner; he'd noted the story at the time for the tragedy of it, but hadn't wanted to pay particularly close attention.

"In the middle of a Little Miss Junior Patriot Pageant," Angela clarified.

"Just nine years old…" Bones said, half to herself, as she studied the picture, Booth unable to do anything other than stare at it with her.

He hadn't even looked over the files yet, and he already knew that this case was going to be _very _difficult to deal with…

* * *

"You have a roofing business?" Booth asked, looking curiously at Brianna's father, Dave Swanson, as he leaned against the wall of the interrogation room, Bones sitting silently at the table while Booth sat on its edge.

"Uh, yeah," Swanson replied, running his hand awkwardly over his bald forehead. "I-I-I went out on my own when Brianna was born; thought I could make some more money, you know?"

"Do you use mastic asphalt in your work?" Bones asked, looking at him with her usual neutral expression.

"Uh, yeah, for waterproofing," Swanson replied. "Why?"

"Were you working the day your daughter disappeared?" Booth asked casually; fathers were always an awkward subject for him, given most of the crap examples he'd seen when he was Angel, even if he was personally committed to being better than they had ever been, and the information Brianna's mother had provided for them didn't help him tackle this situation with the objectivity it deserved.

"No, it was the weekend," Swanson replied, a growing edge of irritation to his voice. "What are you guys getting at?"

"We're just trying to piece things together," Booth said, trying to placate the other man. "That's all-"

"Damn it!" Swanson yelled, his fingers pressing against the table as he glared at Booth and Bones. "I answered all these questions when Brianna first went missing. This is Jackie's doing, right?"

"You wanted your daughter back," Booth replied, keeping his voice level. "Sometimes, in a divorce, the emotions… they get a little high, you don't know what you're doing …"

"No, I know _exactly _what happened," Swanson said firmly. "Jackie wasted so much time having the cops check me out, the case went cold. This is all Jackie's fault."

Under other circumstances, Booth would have argued against Swanson apparently attempting to pass the blame on to his ex-wife, but he'd seen enough grief and rage over the centuries to know when it was and wasn't misdirected, and this was an example of when it wasn't.

"Look," Swanson said, sitting down and pulling out his wallet, opening it to show a picture of a younger, more natural-looking, brown-haired Brianna sitting behind her father, her hands on his shoulders, the picture of childhood innocence. "This was my little girl. Not what Jackie turned her into. _This_ is who I wanted back."

There was nothing that could be said to that, so Booth and Bones simply sat in silence until Swanson looked back up at them. "You, uh… you didn't give her the remains, did you?"

"No," Bones replied, sympathy in her eyes as she looked at him. "We can't release them. Not before the investigation is completed."

"I want her buried right," Swanson said, looking at her photograph with grief practically written all over his face.

Booth could understand that sentiment only too well; he'd certainly gone to what lengths he could to make Cordelia's funeral as tasteful as possible, giving her what she would have wanted rather than the lavish ceremony he could have afforded on his new budget.

"I don't want her funeral to be some disgusting show Jackie puts on," Swanson continued, his voice trembling slightly as he discussed a pain no parent should ever have to endure. "I-I-I… I wanna bury her with some love, you know?"

It might leave them stuck for suspects once again, but something about the genuine grief that this man showed for his daughter told Booth that this guy cared far more for Brianna than the mother she'd ended up staying with.

* * *

"This is the rib cage of a healthy ten-year-old girl," Zack explained, indicating an X-Ray of a ribcage on a monitor, Booth looking on with Cam and Bones as they stood on one of the side lab rooms.

"And this," Bones continued, the image switching to reveal a second, more compact rib cage shaped more like an hourglass alongside the first image, "is our victim's rib cage."

"Ouch," Booth said, wincing at the image; he didn't know much about bone growth, but something like that could _not _be good for the internal organs it was meant to protect.

"This," Bones continued, bringing up another image of a ribcage with a severely warped spine, "is an X-Ray of a teenage girl who died in 1872."

"What caused the deformity?" Cam asked. "Was it genetic?"

"It was a corset… tightened a little more each day," Bones said

Booth couldn't help but wince at that image; he might have had limited experience of corsets since he'd left Darla and Drusilla after regaining his soul- he hadn't spent enough time with women after that to have much reason to be bothered about corsets, and by the time he was past the worst of his issues they weren't really fashionable any more-, but he knew how tight they could be from some of the trouble Angelus had encountered getting them off.

The thought of someone deliberately doing that to a _kid_…

"That's torture", he said simply, his mind briefly registering Bones's speculation that Brianna had slept like that.

"I imagine it was to give her an hourglass figure, which wouldn't be possible naturally until well into puberty," Bones said.

"You gotta be- you're telling me her _mom _did this to her?" Booth said, his opinion of this case just becoming even bleaker with that revelation.

He never thought he'd say this about anyone, but this woman was almost a more twisted parent than Holtz; Holtz's attitude towards raising Connor in Quor-toth might have been harsh, but at least he'd been willing to give Connor some kind of normality outside of training, whereas Brianna's mother seemed to consider any time her daughter spent not perfecting her appearance to be a waste of time.

"People have done much worse for beauty," Bones said. "Neck stretching, foot binding-"

"OK, and you're saying that makes it OK?" Booth asked, looking at his partner sceptically.

"Well, of course not," Bones said, quickly dispelling Booth's initial concerns. "Any major alteration of our underlying architecture demeans us. You know, we all have aspects of ourselves we might wish were different."

"Yes," Zack said with an emphatic nod. "I wanted larger biceps before I became comfortable with my mental acuity."

Booth definitely wasn't going near that one; Zack might be relatively comfortable with who he was, but he still had a long way to go if anyone else was going to be comfortable with it…

"Here," Bones continued, zooming the X-ray in on what Booth assumed was a particular section of bone- at that close proximity, it put him in mind of caves in a cliff-, "you can see… cribra orbitalia, suggesting Brianna suffered from long-term malnourishment."

"There's no enamel erosion to indicate bulimia, so it's more likely she's been on a calorie-controlled diet for at least two years," Zack added (Booth didn't know what the long-term implications of such a diet would be, but he'd understood enough to know that it probably wouldn't be pleasant).

"Oh, it gets better," Cam said.

"How can it not?" Booth asked sardonically.

"Her tox screen came back with traces of somatropin, tetracycline, and glycopyrronium bromide," Cam said.

Booth had no idea what that meant, but judging by Bones's look of shock, it couldn't be good.

"Human growth hormone, broad-spectrum antibiotic used to treat acne, and a chemical mixture that controls perspiration," Zack explained (Booth would have been proud of Zack's ability to 'dumb things down' without making him feel stupid if he wasn't horrified at what he'd just learned). "All with serious side effects."

"No prescriptions were ever issued," Cam added, confirming Booth's worst impressions.

"So Mom bound, starved and drugged her," Booth said grimly. "That's heartwarming."

"Our society puts a premium on beauty," Bones said. "Common in declining cultures."

Booth didn't like to think too much about the implications of that last statement, to the point that he was almost grateful when Angela arrived to report other news; he _really _didn't want to consider what that statement about their society overall any more than he had to…

* * *

"This is what happened when Rome fell," Bones said reflectively, as the two of the sat around the table in the Jeffersonian's lounge area, the anthropologist cutting into a doughnut on the plate in front of her.

"What?" Booth asked, picking up one of the doughnuts with his finger and staring at it as he spoke. "People ate stale doughnuts?"

"Objectification of women, beauty as self-esteem," Bones said, clarifying that she was addressing the case rather than their immediate activities.

"Well," Booth said, smiling slightly at her- the result might have sucked, but he still wanted to stay somewhat optimistic- as he put his doughnut down, "I think, you know, some of those kids actually had a good time."

If he'd learned anything from Cordelia's brief acting aspirations, it was the importance of performers enjoying themselves when they were on stage; the motivations that led to them being entered might have been questionable, but he'd been around people enough to know that the girls had enjoyed themselves.

"The girl in the pink could really dance," Bones said, nodding contemplatively as she ate her snack before her tone became grimmer. "But then again, Nero could really play the fiddle."

"You know, Bones," Booth said, his expression thoughtful as he looked at her

"I like to think that, um, someplace deep inside, people really know what's important."

He knew that Buffy and Cordelia had needed some very drastic experiences to reach that point themselves, but the fact remained that, when they'd had a chance to at least try and get away after witnessing what life was really like, they'd resolved to remain and continue the fight, no matter what the final costs had been.

"It's hard to believe when you see women trying to disguise or change themselves," Bones said.

Booth just mumbled a response, out of a lack of anything else to say; most of his examples of women changing or disguising themselves were more positive than the examples Bones was probably expecting,

"I never understood that," Bones said, popping another piece of doughnut in her mouth.

"Well, I mean, no, of course you wouldn't," Booth said, smiling at her before he realised what he'd said.

"Why?" Bones asked, looking curiously at him.

"Well, it's just, you know…" Booth said, initially trying not to look at her before he decided to bite the proverbial bullet and finish what he'd been saying, "someone who looks like you… well, wouldn't…"

He paused for a moment, looking her in the eyes, as he finally finished his sentence. "Just because of the way you look."

"I don't understand," Bones said, shaking her head as she looked at him in confusion. "What… way do I look?"

"Well, you know," Booth said, smiling at her slightly baffled expression, "you're… structured… very well."

Looking down at herself, Bones looked contemplative for a moment before looking back at him with a slight smile.

"As are you," she said.

For a moment, Booth allowed himself to enjoy the moment, before he glanced down at the lower level and found himself looking at Cam as she stared up at him,

Somehow, that one glance made this current conversation feel so much more… awkward…

On the one hand, he should probably go down there and join Cam, but on the other hand, he and Bones had _really _been having an interesting conversation…


	31. The Woman in the Sand

Disclaimer: I own neither Angel or anything associated with him, and "Bones" is equally out of my reach control-wise

Feedback: Appreciated

Angel of the Bones

Walking through the casino, Booth wished that he could relax more; he wasn't sure if it was just because of what had nearly happened to him during his last visit to Las Vegas as Angel, his memories of Booth's gambling addiction, or a combination of both- he sometimes wondered if whatever had created Booth's past had added in that particular 'quirk' to give him a reason to avoid casinos-, but he always felt on edge when he was in these environments, and the fact that they were hunting a murderer didn't do much to improve his mood.

"Hey," Bones said, indicating a man in a dark suit and unbuttoned shirt walking between the tables a short distance away. "There's our loan shark; let's go!"

"OK," Booth said, staying in pace even as Bones moved forwards. "Just, uh… give me a moment."

It was so rare that he had to deal with these kind of situations that so reinforced the difference between what Booth and Angel were aware of; Angel could have sensed all kinds of details about these people based on his awareness of the most minor signals given out by their bodies, but Booth was limited to a human level of senses and the relevant responses…

"Oh my God!" Bones said, turning back to look at him with a shocked expression of apology, "I completely forgot! You can't be here, Booth; you're a degenerate gambler!"

"Former gambler, OK?" Booth said, looking pointedly at her. "Not degenerate; I've been through the program, OK… and you know what; he's on the move," he said, indicating where their target had started walking again.

"OK, but what if you got a sudden urge to gamble while you're here?" Bones asked as they continued to walk after their target, holding on to his arm in a protectively reassuring manner. "I mean, it's like sending an alcoholic to a distillery. Do you need to sit down?"

"No, I'm fine," Booth said (He was _not _going to snap at his partner for her somewhat-comical exaggeration of the worst-case-scenarios he might be dealing with; he would appreciate her concern and not snap at her that he could resist the urge to gamble after resisting the urge to treat people like food…). "It's just, you know the sound of the winning. It'll...it'll pass."

"What?" Bones asked. "The sound or the winning?"

"This kind of reminds me of the first time," Booth said, quickly going over his memories of Vegas's development over the years; make the right adjustments to the story to fit someone who came to Vegas as a young man a couple of decades ago rather than a centuries-old vampire who came to its opening days, and there wasn't that much difference between Angel's true first time here and Booth's fake story. "I walked in the Desert Inn with thirty-five bucks in my pocket and I walked out with a cool ten grand. The next night, I lost everything. Tapped out my ATM trying to get it back."

"What's that game called again?" Bones asked, indicating a nearby table.

"Craps," Booth replied.

"What?" Bones asked, holding out a hand to stop him. "What's the matter now?"

"No, it's the game; it's called Craps," Booth clarified, looking at the table reflectively; with his vampiric coordination, rolling the dice the right way had been relatively easy. "You know, hey, this used to be my game, Bones. Roll them bones, chuck the dice, you know…"

Looking at the table, he was momentarily disappointed to see the dealer taking in the chips, but then noted their suspect once again. "And he's going for the bar. OK, you stay here; I know how to talk to these guys."

"Whoa, talk?" Bones said, looking at him in surprise at the new order. "You can barely breathe."

"I'm fine, just trust me, alright?" Booth said, looking pointedly at her. "Wait here."

"And do what, exactly?" Bones asked with a slight edge to her voice.

"You're an anthropologist," Booth retorted. "Observe the culture."

Bones might be out of her depth in social situations, but he had a feeling that she'd do well if he gave her that kind of order/suggestion…

* * *

"Take a closer look at the stress markers to her sternum, Zack," Bones said, the car's video phone on as they spoke with the rest of the team back at the lab. "They strike you as unusual?"

"_Well, they do seem more the result of repetitive medium impact manual blows than the single high impact from a bat_," Zack replied.

"_The husband could really dish it out_," Hodgins said grimly.

"_Maybe she dished it back_," Zack suddenly said. "_These hairline fractures on her knuckles_?"

"Defensive wounds," Bones said, her tone contemplative. "Wait a minute; let me zoom in?"

With that instruction, the screen quickly adjusted to focus on the relevant area, Bones studying it for a moment before speaking again. "Repetitive manual blows, fractured knuckles… The glucocorticoid that killed your bugs, Hodgins; could it have been simple cortisone to treat an injury?"

"_Yeah_," Hodgins said. "_Certainly possible_…"

"_What are you thinking, Doctor Brennan_?" Cam asked.

"I am thinking Billie Morgan could have been a boxer," Bones.

"You mean like a real boxer?" Booth said, looking at her in surprise. "In the ring?"

"_But wouldn't boxing gloves prevent injuries like these_?" Cam asked.

"_Unless she wasn't wearing gloves_," Hodgins pointed out.

"_Well, what boxer does that_?" Angela asked.

"_Ultimate fighters_," Hodgins said, answering the question before Booth could voice his own theory.

"Ultimate fighters," Booth said, allowing himself an exaggerated smile. "Ah, you're into that crap too, huh, Hodgins?"

"_Dude, it's barbaric_," Hodgins said with a grin. "_When it shows up on cable I can't turn it off_."

"_And it's actually legal_?" Angela asked.

"_Completely sanctioned_," Hodgins said. "_They do wear some protective gear, which would fly in the face of our girl's injuries, though_."

"That is," Booth pointed out, "unless it was underground."

"Underground where?" Bones asked.

"Come on," Booth said. "Haven't you guys ever seen _Fight Club_?"

"_Illegal, no holds barred, slug fests_," Hodgins said with a relish to his tone that Booth didn't like when violence was the subject. "_Modern day Panem et Circensus. But generally there's no free bread_."

"So Don Morgan didn't beat his wife," Bones said.

"Got to say," Booth said, trying to keep the smug tone down to a minimum, "I told you so."

It might give them more possibilities to eliminate, but at least they had a better idea where to look for their killer now.

* * *

He might not do this kind of thing regularly, but, in a strange way, Booth found it significantly easier to go undercover since he had become human again; not only was there the advantage that he was less likely to expose his true identity now that sunlight wasn't a weakness, but somehow, when most of his current life felt like a lie, it was strangely reassuring to be in a situation where those who really knew him _expected _him to be lying.

Admittedly, the outfit felt a bit strange as he put it on- the suspenders in particular were something he'd always found a bit fiddly when they'd been developed; belts made it a lot easier-, but at least it wasn't as tasteless as that Hawaiian shirt he'd worn when helping Kate catch that mobster, and it served the purpose of creating an identity that wasn't him for the current mission.

"Hey," Bones said, emerging from the bathroom in a black dress with wide drooping arms that practically enveloped her figure. "What do you think?"

"I have enough Bibles, thank you, but try next door," Booth replied, his thoughts on his partner's social skills lowering again; in the kind of environment they were trying to infiltrate, that kind of attire wouldn't get them anywhere.

"You said I could be a school teacher," Bones pointed out, hands on her hips as she looked indignantly at him.

"Not the spinster kind who lives with her sister but, ya know, the hot one who makes the boys crazy," Booth said, handing her a dress he'd picked up from a shop when purchasing their attire for the current mission; he'd spent enough time with women over the years to have a good eye for estimating sizes. "Here, put on the one that I picked out, alright?"

"OK, but don't be so bossy," Bones said, as she took the dress and walked back to the bathroom.

"We're newlyweds, I said," Booth said, checking over his attire in the mirror while working out the right posture for his new persona. "Takin' Sin City by storm, ready for action."

"But you know," Bones said, still changing in the bathroom, "marriage is such an archaic institution-"

"Listen, Bones," Booth said, exhaling in frustration as he pulled on a short-sleeved shirt, "I know what I'm doing, OK? I've done this before; just stop arguing."

"I'm not," Bones replied. "It's just, you know, I don't need a piece of paper to prove my commitment."

"Fine," Booth said, adding a dark jacket to his attire. "We're engaged."

"Why would I be okay with engagement?" Bones asked.

"Whatever, Bones, all right?" Booth said, rolling his eyes in frustration at his partner's stubbornness as he tested out a hat to observe its effect on his new appearance. "We're a loosely committed couple of hot high rollers, see, with money to burn, 'cause that is what's gonna get us in the door."

Turning around at the sound of the door opening, Booth's eyes widened at the sight that greeted him as Bones emerged from the bathroom.

He'd always known that his partner was a beautiful woman, but seeing her in such a tight, dark dress, revealing so much more than he was used to seeing while still remaining tasteful…

"Like this?" Bones asked, indicating the dress.

"Yeah," Booth said, as his brain caught up with the rest of him. "Yeah, like that."

Even the phone call Bones subsequently received from the Jeffersonian staff wasn't enough to get Booth's mind off the image of his partner in that dress, to say nothing of how she turned around and basically asked him to zip her up; that was an image that he was _not _going to forget any time soon…

* * *

Walking into the underground fight club, Booth tried not to show his discomfort at their current environment; Seeley Booth would just be unnerved by the whole thing, but Angel had experienced some moments in this kind of environment that it was hard to forget.

Even after so many years had passed, his time in that demonic fight-ring still frustrated him; not only did he have so little evidence that the thing had been shut down for good after he finished off the current wave of fights, but he could never be sure if what he'd done had actually been for the best, considering how violent some of those demons had been…

"I suppose," Bones said as they walked through the crowd of people watching the fight, "from an anthropological standpoint, this taps into the nihilistic part of the human psyche fascinated by blood and gore…"

"It's human cock-fighting," Booth said. He might tolerate his partner's eccentricity at times- and it wasn't likely that anyone could hear them over the roar of the current fight anyway-, but this particular situation evoked far too many personal memories for him to feel comfortable with her discussing nihilism and blood; it put him even more in mind of his time as a vampire…

"More like lesser surrogates engaged in battles on behalf of the elite lords who don't have the courage to fight themselves," Bones said.

"Alright, you know what?" Booth said, lowering his voice as he looked at his partner- the fight would only distract other people for so long if she kept talking like that- before snapping his fingers. "Come back to me, Roxie, huh?"

"Ewww, look at all that sweat!" Bones said, slipping into character as a powerful kick from one combatant knocked his opponent to the ground. As the announcer- Booth couldn't call him a referee as that implied there were rules for him to enforce- identified the winner, Booth's attention shifted to the man who'd just been defeated.

He _knew _that guy…

"What in the hell are you looking at?" the man- Walt, Booth was fairly sure his name was; he'd been in the academy when Booth would have been there- said, walking over to look at Booth with a cold glare.

"Not much," Booth replied, before a punch to the face knocked him to the ground, the familiar feeling of unconsciousness seeping over him before Booth even had the time to reflect on his frustration at his greater vulnerability now that he was human…

* * *

With the case resolved and Bones packing away their luggage- he wasn't falling into gender roles, but after the beating he'd taken last night he just wanted a chance to sit down-, Booth took advantage of the peace to watch the news report on the recent arrests; it might be egocentric, but it was nice to feel like he was performing a service that would receive some public acknowledgement, even if his name wasn't attached to the case directly.

"'Among others'?" Bones said, looking indignantly at the television as the reporter only identified Mason Roberts by name as one of the Arnos' victims. "Is that what Billie Morgan is to these people? Others?"

"It's day one, Bones, relax," Booth said, even as his partner picked up the remote and turned the television off. "You know what? Billie's going to have her story told; it's just a matter of time."

With that said, he decided that now was as good a time as any to ask the question that he'd been waiting to ask since she made the original comment. "So what was the, uh, second reason?"

"What?" Bones asked, not looking at him despite the confusion in her tone.

"You never told me the second reason why, uh, why you bet on me," Booth clarified, walking over to stand beside her.

"Yeah," Bones said, blushing slightly as she continued packing. "It was… silly."

"Well, come on," Booth replied. "Try me."

"Beginner's luck," Bones said at last. "I haven't lost at anything since I've been here. So, well, I… I figured if I bet on you, then…"

"I couldn't lose," Booth said, smiling in understanding at her.

"Sounds silly, right?" Bones asked.

"It sounds familiar," Booth said, smiling warmly at her. "Thanks."

"You're welcome," Bones replied.

Booth wasn't sure what prompted the stare that followed, but he was relieved when Bones broke it by reminding them of their need to leave; things were complicated enough without thinking too much about _that_…


	32. Aliens in the Spaceship

Disclaimer: I own neither Angel or anything associated with him, and "Bones" is equally out of my reach control-wise

Feedback: Appreciated

Angel of the Bones

"Has it occurred to you that God is a lot like the Grave Digger?" Bones asked, looking curiously over at Booth as they drove away from their latest interview.

"What?" Booth asked, removing his sunglasses as he looked at his partner in confusion; he'd had enough to think about after adjusting his thoughts to ignore his earlier concerns that they'd found some left-over Initiative experiment when they'd discovered that pod, and now Bones was bringing up something like _that_?

"He lays down the rules, no way to question him or negotiate, then it's almost as though he doesn't care how it works out," Bones explained. "Either you do as he says, make some sacrifices and they're delivered, or you don't and you end up in hell."

"You know what?" Booth retorted, falling back on the most religious thing he could think of to say right now and hoping Cordelia or whoever else was up there wouldn't mind it, "I'd appreciate it if you didn't say things like that because I really don't want to get struck by lightning."

"Do you go to church every Sunday?" Bones asked, as he took advantage of the current straight stretch of road to cross himself (If nothing else, that kind of gesture helped him reaffirm his humanity).

"Yes, I do," Booth replied (He might be undecided about God specifically, but given his awareness of some higher powers up there, attending church was the easiest way to accommodate Booth's religious background while showing respect for whatever powers had given him his humanity).

"Can I come with you?" Bones asked.

"No," Booth said. "You can't."

"Why?" Bones asked. "It might help me to understand."

"I am not going to help you disrespect God in His own house, OK?" Booth retorted; he'd encountered enough religious ceremonies over the years to know that you couldn't really understand something by attending a ceremony. "If you want to do some kind of, ya know, anthropological study… turn on the religious channel."

Organised religion might not be as important to him as he sometimes acted like it was, but he was conflicted enough about his faith in higher powers as it was without having someone there with him.

He _wanted_ to believe that there was something better out there, but when most of the higher powers he'd met either sat back and did nothing to help or stepped in to enforce their own vision of what should be- his Shanshu had been a blessing, but he still attributed that more to people putting in a good word rather than anything else-, he was more comfortable with the ideals of Christianity rather than the specifics…

* * *

As he listened to the recording of the Grave Digger's voice, informing them of the account number needed for the wire transfer that would save Hodgins and Bones's lives, Booth couldn't recall the last time he'd wanted to _really _get his hands on someone this badly.

He'd wanted to kill people before, of course- with what he'd done in the past and what he did for a living now, it was inevitable that he'd encounter people he just wanted to kill because there was no conceivable set of circumstances where letting them live would be a good idea-, but he rarely wanted to torture someone as much as he did this guy; the bastard Gravedigger had created a scenario where people had to give up so much of what they'd earned through actual positive effort while putting people through one of the worst kinds of death he could think of…

"It will be his last communication too," Thomas Vega said, as the message concluded. "He's never varied."

"He learned from the Kent boys," Kim Kurland noted. "He's got two of them, he cut the deadline in half."

Booth hadn't needed to know that; this guy was dangerous enough with his warped M.O., but the idea that he was able to adapt it for the sake of it…

"Why is The Grave Digger demanding so much money?" Vega asked speculatively. "It doesn't make any sense."

"Well, he's always been reasonable at knowing how much people can raise within the time limit," Janine pointed out (Booth didn't like the implication of that statement; it sounded like the journalist was already considering the financial possibilities rather than thinking about the victims as _people_).

"Has, uh, has Doctor Brennan made that much money from her books?" Vega asked, his tone an assessing one that Booth didn't like.

"It's Hodgins," Booth corrected; he might have assured the bug and slime guy he'd keep quiet about his wealth, but this wasn't the kind of situation where secrets would help anybody. "He's the sole heir to this thing called the Cantilever Group."

"What's that?" Vega asked.

"Just the third largest privately owned corporation in the country…" Janine said grimly.

"Make sense now, Tom?" Booth asked, looking grimly over at the author.

The sooner he could get started on trying to crack this case, the better for everyone; he had to find his partner and the bug and dirt guy before it was too late, and he had less to work with than he'd had to use when trying to rescue Connor.

God, this was one occasion when he missed some of the supernatural artefacts he'd acquired over the years; it might have been risky, but he'd take the risk if it meant ensuring their survival…

* * *

"There's no negotiating with the Grave Digger," Vega said as he walked into Booth's office, the man's manner frustrating Booth with his sheer nonchalance; the man was here to advise on the case, and now he was telling Booth how to do his goddamn job…

"You've been through this… what, five times with this guy?" Booth said, turning around to look at the former agent.

"Exactly," Vega said. "So I know him, and he does not negotiate."

"Oh, what?" Booth said, deciding to voice the theory he'd been nurturing since this mess began. "What, no… chat room action with him?"

"Are you nuts?" Vega said, looking genuinely offended at the idea. "I hate the son of a bitch."

"Why?" Booth replied. "He's made you rich."

"You know what?" Vega said, his voice lowering as he walked towards Booth. "You just need to deal with the facts; that if you can't put the ransom together in the time he gave you, your partner is dead."

In that moment, Booth was suddenly reminded of the way the Scoobies had reacted to Wesley during that whole mess with the Box of Gavrok, when he'd suggested they sacrifice Willow; the advice he was hearing made sense, but he would be _damned _if he was going to go along with it (The situation might be different, but the _sentiment _still remained valid; _nobody _got to tell them what to do if the alternative meant letting a friend die).

It might not be professional, but he wasn't going to be goddamn _professional _when Bones's _life _was on the line…

Acting on instinct, he grabbed Vega and threw him onto the table behind him, his throat about the other man's neck as he held him down.

"Here's the deal, all right?" he said, not even bothering to look at the other guy; if he gave the impression he didn't see the man below him as a person, it would help make his point more clearly. "You have a relationship with this guy, what they call symbiotic; you benefit from each other, hmm?

"So know this," he continued, shifting his gaze downward to ensure that the other man got the point. "That deadline comes around, and my partner is still underground, I will end you, you understand?"

It might be a more decisive threat than he was usually comfortable making, but with the lives of two of his team at stake, the usual rules didn't apply.

"Three hours to live," he said, picking Vega up off the desk and virtually throwing him towards the office door; if the man didn't get out of his sight soon, he was going to do something even more violent to the git than he already had, and that might just end up getting him charged with harassment. "Better hurry."

* * *

The disadvantage of working with geniuses, in Booth's opinion, was that this kind of genius had too much raw knowledge; they were so focused on gathering facts and figures that they had only a limited ability to make this kind of intuitive leap required in this situation.

"It's not a numerical alphabetical code or an equation," Zack said, still studying the text that Booth had received earlier; he might have inspired them to keep working despite the official expiration of the time available, but that apparently wasn't going to get them working any faster.

"It's not GPS coordinates or indications of topography," Angela continued, her expression more solemn despite her obvious emotional investment in the results.

"Great," Booth said, looking urgently at the artist and the student. "Then what is it?"

"Can I make a suggestion?" Cam put in. "See, this is exactly why I was sent here. You guys are brilliant, but you won't make intuitive leaps."

"You mean 'jump to conclusions'?" Zack asked.

"That's exactly what I mean," Cam confirmed. "This is a message from one of them to one of us. Specific. Focused. Who was it meant to get to?"

"Easy," Booth said, leaping to the most obvious conclusion. "Brennan's cell to mine, right? The message was for me. We have an understanding, we work together."

"We all work together," Angela pointed out. "She's my best friend, and Hodgins… Hodgins…"

"She's right," Cam interjected, stopping Angela having to explain something that was clearly very emotionally complicated. "We should assume the message is from Hodgins, not from Brennan."

"Why?" Booth asked, even as a possible explanation came to him.

"Because they're buried alive," Cam began, reminding Booth of the specifics that he should have considered earlier.

"And Hodgins is all about dirt," Angela continued.

"OK, great," Booth said, trying to cover up his earlier oversight. "The message is about dirt, but who is it to?"

"Angela," Zack suggested. "Hodgins is all about dirt and Angela."

"But it's numbers, Zack," Angela pointed out. "It's for you. Hodgins would have written me a line of poetry or something."

"Agent Booth," Vega said, as he and O'Connell walked up to the platform, Booth breaking off the current discussion as he walked over to the stairs to hear their news. "Janine used all her contacts to get me on all the local news shows. Now, I explained that we needed more time, I asked him to call; I'm sorry, but he's completely consistent."

"Six, seven, sixteen," Zack said, distracting Booth's attention away from this pointless information- why did the guy bother to come here to tell them nothing had changed?- as he focused on the text message. "Carbon, Nitrogen and Sulfur on the periodic table of elements. They are buried in coal rich soil."

"You've got to narrow it down, Zack," Booth said, even as Bones's assistant pulled up a map that presumably contained the information needed to use the data Hodgins had provided; even if that was the right area, it was too large for them to search manually…

"Keep going, Zack," Angela said encouragingly.

"Uh… mineral components of coal are all the same; it's the organic components that provide a unique fingerprint," Zack continued, as the map shifted to focus in on a more specific section of the map. "They are called mascerals. They fluoresce at different levels. A reflectance of 1.4 is quite rare; suggesting a high concentration of inertinite."

"Zack, tell me what that means," Booth asked, as an area of the map was highlighted with a blue outline.

"It means he knows where they are," Angela said.

"Zack…" Booth said, looking pointedly at his partner's student.

"I know where they are," Zack said, pinpointing a spot on the map with an orange dot.

If Zack hadn't been so socially awkward, Booth might have hugged him after he revealed that news.

* * *

"What did you ask for?" Bones asked, leaning over to question him as he sat back after finishing his prayer in the front pew of the church, the day after their near-miraculous rescue.

"That's between me and a certain Saint," Booth replied, trying not to think about how fortunate the timing had been for this mission; if his team had arrived just a few minutes later, or if Bones and Hodgins had set off that explosion a bit earlier…

"Although…" he said contemplatively, glad for an excuse not to think about their close call directly, "I did ask for a little help finding the Grave Digger.

"Good move," Bones said, before she sniffed the air slightly. "What's that smell?"

"The candles," Booth said, indicating the fires in question. "And I said thanks. You should try it some time."

"If I were going to pray, I would have done it just before we set off the explosion," Bones replied.

"And you didn't?" Booth asked, ignoring her ignorance of his true meaning; that was just the way his partner was…

"No," Bones said. "See, if there was a God- which there isn't-"

"Do you see where we are?" Booth said, urgently ssshing his partner; he wasn't in the mood for that kind of religious debate at a time like this.

"And if I were someone who believed he had a plan…" Bones continued.

"Which I do," Booth said (He might be doubtful about the precise details of that plan, but fulfilling his destiny had gone a long way to helping him accept that there was _some _purpose towards all this).

"Then I'd be tempted to think He wanted me to go through something like I went through because it might make me more open to the whole… concept," Bones concluded.

"It obviously hasn't," Booth noted, turning his attention back to the front of the church.

"I'm OK with you thanking God for saving me and Hodgins," Bones said.

"That's not what I thanked Him for," Booth said (He hoped Cordelia wouldn't mind about the gender shift he was using right now; he had to keep up appearances, after all). "I thanked Him for saving… all of us. It was all of us. Every. Single. One. You take one of us away, and you and Hodgins are in that hole forever. And I'm thankful for that."

He'd appreciated the team's skills in the past, but this was the first time when he'd needed all of them; if he'd had anyone else working with him, or if anyone else had been taken, then the missing people would be dead…

"I knew you wouldn't give up," Bones said, her voice breaking slightly as she spoke.

"I knew you wouldn't give up," Booth repeated back at her, smiling slightly at his partner.

They might disagree on some things, but they knew that they could always count on each other; in a world like this, that was the most important thing you could ever find.


	33. The Headless Witch in the Woods

Disclaimer: I own neither Angel or anything associated with him, and "Bones" is equally out of my reach control-wise

Feedback: Appreciated

Angel of the Bones

"It's getting thicker and thicker in here," Bones said as they continued to walk through the woods that were the scene of their latest crime, just behind the forest ranger assigned to direct them to the location.

"That's why a forensic team got lost," Ranger Edison explained. "I've sent somebody back to find them."

"Look, you sure you know where you're going?" Booth asked, looking apprehensively at his surroundings; time may no longer be a factor in his work now that sunlight wasn't an issue for him any more, but that didn't mean he wanted to get lost in here.

"I still have trouble and I've been here for three years," the ranger said. "That's why we advise hikers to stay away."

"I know, I'm pining for concrete," Booth said, glancing back at his partner as he continued walking. "You just, uh, you stay close, alright Bones? I don't want you to get caught out here when it gets dark, OK?"

Turning around, he was only slightly surprised to see that she'd wandered off; Bones might be intelligent, but she was too damn independent at times…

"Bones? Bones?" he called out, as he began to hurry back the way he'd come. "Where the hell are you, Bones?"

"I'm right here, Booth," Bones said, her voice too low for Booth's taste.

"Don't do that, all right?" Booth said, walking around the small gathering of trees to where his partner was standing.

"What?" Bones asked, turning to look at him.

"Take off like that, OK?" Booth said. "You heard the guy."

"I saw this," Bones explained, indicating a strange, vaguely oval-shaped object, made of a disturbing combination of bone, wood, and something in the middle that he couldn't quite identify visually as either a piece of wood or a leaf, hanging on a tree branch above them. "It's some sort of talisman. These are bones from a bird and the colouring on that ornament looks like dried blood. There are more of them, too."

"Geez, they look like eyes," Booth said, his mind briefly attempting to compare them to something in his experience before discarding that effort as pointless; he just didn't know enough about witchcraft to know for sure if these were real or not.

"OK, this is weird…" he said, noting some of the other ornaments scattered around the trees before he looked back at Edison. "You see a lot of these?"

"Not me, but I've heard some other folks have come across some pretty strange stuff in here," Edison said. "Word is, it's Maggie Cinders."

"There's a woman who lives out here?" Bones asked.

"Did," Edison replied, his previous apprehension making it clear that they were talking about more than an old local recluse even before Edison continued his story. "Died in 1780. Folks around here thought she was a witch and beheaded her. Legend is, she still haunts the woods, looking for her severed head."

"And you believe this, Ranger Edison?" Bones asked, even as Booth quickly went over what he knew and remembered of witches; the scenario described wasn't _impossible_, but he was fairly sure ghosts didn't hang around looking for missing body-parts unless they were Egyptians who'd convinced themselves that they _should _remain…

"Look, I'm just telling you what I've heard," Edison said.

"Yeah, I'd prefer we keep moving, OK?" Booth said, wanting to get the conversation away from ghosts as they continued along the path for a few more minutes until he saw the distinctive yellow of crime scene tape in a more open area.

"This is one of the only clearings around here," Edison explained as he lifted the tape to allow them access. "The pit was covered with sticks and leaves. One of the hikers fell in on the body, freaked and ran. Maggie Cinders did say she'd kill anybody who dared to look for her."

"So you talked to Ms. Cinders?" Bones said, looking bluntly at Edison. "That must have been difficult since she doesn't have a head. Bag the eyes. Give me a hand."

"You want me to go down there with you?" Booth said, Bones advancing towards the central pit as he briefly noted the additional eye-talismans around this area.

"No," Bones said. "I don't want the remains compromised."

"Right," Booth said, glad for the excuse not to get in the hole- it was too grave-like for his tastes-, helping his partner in before he turned the conversation back to Edison. "So, how'd she kill them? You know, in the legend?"

"Like she was killed," Edison replied. "She cuts off their heads."

"Iliac crest and pubis show it's a male," Bones said, her voice giving Booth something else to focus on beyond unpleasant recollections of other ghosts as she searched over the body before her. "Epiphyseal fusion puts him between eighteen and twenty-five years old. He's on a- a video camera."

"OK," Booth said, filing the camera away as something to consider later. "Cause of death?"

"Well," Bones said, her torchlight examining the corners of the pit, "since I can't find a skull, I'd say… his head got cut off."

_Great_, Booth thought with a frustrated groan.

So much for an easy case; he was going to have to spend some time checking this over with his remaining magic-based 'tools' in secret just to make sure that there wasn't an _actual_ ghost involved in this mess…

* * *

Sitting opposite Lori Mueller, Booth tried not to think too much about his past experience with this kind of institution; Drusilla was the most obvious example of someone who should have had better treatment, but then there were the likes of Sir Andrew Landry and other enemies of Angelus, driven mad because he found it more fun than just killing them…

"I checked back in because I couldn't sleep," Lori said, the young woman's long red hair framing an attractive yet haunted face. "I haven't slept for days."

"Thanks for meeting with me, Lori," Booth said, trying to sound warm without being too pushy.

"Sure," Lori said, smiling slightly at him. "There's not much else to do in here."

"Hey," he continued, trying to find the kindest way to phrase this, "do you mind if I ask you what happened that night in the woods?"

"I've told the police everything," Lori said. "But Graham is the only one that can make things right. He just got a little lost in there but when he gets back, he's going to make sure that I'm safe again."

"Graham," Booth said, his hopes for her condition already faltering; she was talking as though a guy who'd been missing for this long was still going to just show up. "He promised to take care of you?"

"Well, sure," Lori said, a slight smile on her face. "He's my boyfriend. He doesn't want anything to happen to me."

"Your boyfriend?" Booth repeated.

"We keep it a secret," Lori said, leaning over and whispering to him. "Other girls get jealous. Everyone loves Graham. Did… did you… go into the woods? Is that why you're here?"

"Yeah," Booth said.

"You found Graham?" Lori said, her expression becoming more urgent as she continued to speak. "He said he was going to talk to Maggie. Is that where you found him?"

"He wasn't with Maggie," Booth said, stuck for a better way to phrase this.

"Oh no," Lori said, her expression becoming increasingly horrified as she repeated her denial over and over, knowing what he was about to say without him needing to say it.

"Lori?" Booth said, looking anxiously at her. "Lori, calm down."

"She killed him!" Lori said.

"Lori," Booth said. "Lori, we need to know what happened."

"That's what happened!" Lori said.

"We need to know what happened to him," Booth said; maybe if he focused on the facts, he'd manage to get through Lori's mental state…

"Did she take his head?" Lori said, Booth's silence once again answering the question. "Oh God, no! The blood! I- I called for help, but Brian wasn't there!"

Even as an orderly hurried over to try and restrain Lori, she continued to scream about blood and call for help from Graham, leaving Booth helpless to do anything more than sit and look at her, regretting how circumstances had forced him to bring up such a horrific memory for a clearly traumatised girl…

Sometimes he forgot how far people could fall without the real supernatural involved.

* * *

"Lori was not Graham's only girlfriend," Bones said as she examined Graham's remains in one of the site rooms, speculatively discussing the recent information she'd found out from Graham's brother. "He had lots of girlfriends, but he somehow managed to keep them secret from each other."

"So what would happen if a very jealous Lori found out?" Booth said contemplatively.

"I don't know," Bones said as she continued to examine the bone in her hand. "That's more your territory."

"What?" Booth said, looking at her inquiringly. "What? What; am I cheating?"

"I just meant that you use psychology," Bones said, smiling as she looked up from her work at him. "You're very touchy. Perhaps because of all your skulking around…"

"I am discreet, OK?" Booth said. "It's different; a gentleman is discreet, OK?"

"What are we talking about?" Zack asked, looking bemusedly between the two of them.

"Nothing that concerns you," Booth said, glaring at the intern.

"But I'm quite literally in the middle of the conversation and it seems very interesting," Zack said, before Booth folded his arms and glared at the younger man. "However, your glaring indicates that I shouldn't press for further information."

"Good genius," Booth said, nodding at Zack before he looked back at Bones. "So, Lori loves Graham, thinks he loves her but finds out that he doesn't, so she goes all O.J. on him. Ah, that's a perfect cover, right? 'Headless witch did it, not me'. The whole insanity thing might be an act."

He didn't completely believe that assumption- he'd seen insanity, and Lori was definitely not fully _corpus mentus_-, but for the sake of his impartial investigator status, he had to at least consider it.

"But the victim sustained extensive defensive wounds," Zack said. "This was a very powerful attacker."

"Oh, you know," Booth suggested, trying to sound more casual than he really felt, "when a woman finds out that a man has been cheating on her, she can get pretty mad."

The attention he received from the two squints after that statement was more than he needed to realise how they had just interpreted what he'd said.

"That's what I heard," he said defensively; he'd never cheated on _anyone _as Angel, girls knew what they were getting into by sleeping with him when he was Liam, and Angelus had operated on a completely different set of social standards that didn't incorporate cheating as an issue. "OK, look, we got motive and opportunity; it fits."

"No, it doesn't fit," Bones said firmly. "Graham Hastings was 5' 10" and 176 pounds. Lori is 120, tops. The injuries aren't consistent with a woman Lori Mueller's size."

"Of course, "Cam said as she walked into the room, "people on PCP have been known to exhibit extraordinary strength."

"PCP?" Booth said, his mind flashing to the old Sunnydale PD excuse for vampire attacks before he pushed that aside; Cam and the rest of the team would _not _go in for 'Sunnydale Syndrome'. "Who was on PCP?"

"Hodgins' report on the organic matter from the baggy found at the scene showed that it contained psilocybe mushrooms injected with phencyclidine," Cam said.

"Whoa," Booth said; he couldn't recall the last time he'd encountered a PCP case that was _actually _a PCP case. "What a trip."

"Well," Zack said, "if Lori ingested those, it's possible she could've caused Graham's injuries."

"Not to mention," Cam pointed out, "combining dissociative anesthetics with hallucinogenic compounds can have a devastating effect on people with fragile brain chemistry."

"So her mental condition is probably genuine," Bones said.

"You know what," Booth said, taking the presented opportunity to end this particular discussion, "I'm going to go talk to my good old buddy Brian; see if he knows anything about the Magical Mystery Tour that Lori might've been on that night."

At least he had further evidence that he wasn't dealing with an actual supernatural crisis this time around; that just left the question of what he _was _dealing with here…

* * *

As he finished his phone conversation with the forensics team about where to look for the missing clothing, Booth only had to look in his partner's direction to be reminded of what he was trying to avoid.

God, relationships as a human were _complicated_…

"What?" he said, trying to act as though he didn't know what Bones was trying to prompt him into talking about. "He was being a baby."

"I didn't say anything," Bones said.

"But you're looking at me like…" Booth began, before he came up with the appropriate phrase for someone his physical age. "I'm in trouble and you're a teacher."

"You're very touchy lately, Booth," Bones said, looking at him with slight concern.

"Look, Bones," Booth said- they'd come to this point, so he might as well just go along with it-, "I don't know why I didn't tell you about Cam."

"Did I mention Cam?" Bones asked,

"I just… didn't want it to get weird, I guess," Booth said, feeling the inadequacy of that statement.

"Weird?" Bones repeated.

"We're partners, you know?" Booth said, feeling uncomfortable about this topic even as he tried to define what had eluded definition for him practically since he'd started working with her. "Together all the time, right? You're a woman and I'm a man and I never had a relationship like this where we were - like two guys, except you're not… ya know… a guy. Yeah."

It was a complicated way of saying it, but it was true enough; discounting his female associates as Angelus, his long-term history of friendly female acquaintances since he regained his soul consisted of brief conversations with Willow who was more Buffy's friend than his, a few dates with Nina, the complicated relationship with Buffy, his developing familial-then-romantic bond with Cordelia, his older-brother-esque relationship with Fred once she got over her initial crush, the not-quite-real relationship he'd had with Dawn (He remembered seeing her as a second Kathy before losing his soul and had tried to put things back together after returning from Hell, but he also knew that he'd technically never actually _met _her then)…

"No," Bones said, slightly bemused at his turn of phrase. "No, I'm not. Should I feel odd about… wanting to hang out with Will?"

"No, of course not," Booth said. "You know, because essentially… I mean… you're a guy like me. But not really."

God, he was starting to sound like Xander in the early days of the Scoobies; he was talking a load of crap because he had _nothing _more sophisticated coming to mind right now…

"That would mean that, to _me_, you are essentially a woman," Bones said, pausing to ponder that scenario. "Yeah, I can see that."

"No, no, no," Booth said, inwardly cursing this vivid demonstration of how his ramble had left him in more trouble, even if it was just ridiculous rather than emotionally dangerous. "I'd prefer not to be a woman, if you don't mind."

"I'm merely trying to follow your reasoning, Booth," Bones said.

"OK, fine, what do you say we just, you know, we'll drop it for now?" Booth said, unbelievably grateful when his phone rang with further news on the case; at least it gave him something else to talk about other than this increasingly embarrassing conversation…

* * *

Walking into the restaurant, Booth wished that Bones didn't look so happy when he saw her sitting opposite the man he'd come here to arrest; he might be confident that the evidence had led them to this point, but that didn't mean he wanted to hurt his partner after she'd found someone who made her feel that relaxed…

"Booth," Bones said, looking up at him with a smile that was evidently because of whatever she'd just been talking about. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm sorry," Booth said, leaning over briefly to talk to her before focusing his attention on her date as he sat down at the table. "You're under arrest for the murder of your brother, Graham Hastings."

"What?" Will Hastings said.

"You have the right to remain silent," Booth continued.

"What is this, Booth?" Bones said, looking sharply at him.

"He did it," Booth said, looking directly at his partner to ensure that she understood how serious he was being in this situation. "Cam found his blood on the axe and Hodgins found chemicals that only a firefighter would have access to."

"I didn't kill Graham," Will said, even as Bones's horrified expression confirmed that she believed his story. "We fought, that's all."

"You were out there in the woods that night?" Bones said.

"Please don't look at me like that," Will said, holding up a defensive finger. "Please… I was just helping my brother. He said the film was going to make him famous."

"So you got the animal bones, the blood, and you made the chopping sound with the axe," Booth concluded; he could almost appreciate the guy wanting to help his brother if it wasn't for what happened afterwards.

"He wanted me to stay out of sight," Will said, Bones's eyes shimmering with unshed tears as she listened to the story. "But the girl, Lori, he slipped her drugs and she was screaming and I said I wasn't going to help anymore. And I said I wouldn't throw the blood on her, so he did it, and she went crazy and you saw her. Graham did that to her."

"Will…" Bones said, horror growing as she stared at him.

"I had to stop him, OK?" Will said. "I can't be responsible for raising a monster like that."

"So you hit him with the axe," Booth said, his sympathy for Hastings' plea virtually non-existent; he might have killed Penn for the same reason, but there was a difference between killing a demon who could never change and killing a screwed-up human being who might have been redeemable with the right kind of therapy whose only real 'crime' was getting caught up in his work…

"He was just lying there, and I was waiting for him to move," Will continued, a desperate edge to his voice. "And I've never… I never even hit him before, no matter how difficult he got."

"And then you chopped off his head and you buried him to make it look like some witch did it," Booth finished.

"No," Will said firmly, a fanatical gleam in his eyes at this part of his story. "_She_ did it. She did it. Maggie Cinders was out there that night and she made me do it. She told me never to tell anybody. Maggie Cinders made me cut off his head. That's the only way it could happen. You know me. He was my brother. I could never kill my own brother. It was her."

The tears in Bones's eyes would have been all that Booth needed to confirm what he had to do, even if he hadn't known that the scenario described was impossible; ghostly possessions didn't work the way that Will was describing, and the ghosts _definitely _didn't leave messages like that afterwards.

"What are you waiting for, Booth?" she asked, standing up to leave as Booth moved to stand behind Will, reciting his usual speech about the victim's rights almost on automatic as the man continued to call after Bones while protesting his 'innocence'. He didn't know if the guy genuinely believed the crap he was sprouting about Maggie or if he'd just convinced himself of it to cope with his guilt, but the fact remained that the guy was mentally unstable and clearly needed to be put away for a long time.

As much as it hurt his partner, this had to be done if justice was to be served; he'd just have to talk to Bones about this relationship mess later…


	34. Judas on a Pole

Disclaimer: I own neither Angel or anything associated with him, and "Bones" is equally out of my reach control-wise

Feedback: Appreciated

Angel of the Bones

"What was with Zack back there?" Booth asked as he and Bones walked towards their current crime scene on top of a motel roof, depicting a badly charred skeleton hanging from a wooden T; it might be out-of-character for him to interrupt Bones while she was assessing the corpse to determine cause of death, but considering how it affected on their team he felt that a break in pattern was only natural.

"Defending his dissertation, last step before he gets his Doctorate," Bones explained, before she picked up a small pile of organs lying in front of the body. "I think these are what's left of his intestines."

"Is he going to make it?" Booth asked.

"No, he's very dead," Bones said, laughing slightly at her own joke (Which at least showed that she was recognising when something was a joke, rather than deliberately misinterpreting his question).

"I mean Zack," Booth said; Bones's ability to joke was improving, but that wasn't useful right now.

"Uh… fifty/fifty," Bones said, as she examined the body's fingers.

"He's a stoolie," Booth noted as he glanced at the intestines on the floor before them, briefly put in mind of some of the more symbolic punishments he'd inflicted during his time as Angelus; the severity of them varied depending on the mood he was in and his reasons for targeting them, but the principle was still sound.

"Zack?" Bones said, looking back at him.

"Our victim," Booth clarified. "Ya know, he's a rat. Snitch."

"What makes you say that?" Bones asked.

"His guts got spilled, alright?" Booth said, indicating the pile below their victim. "Spill your guts?"

"Very literal," Bones noted.

"Yeah," Booth said. "Hang up there like a scarecrow on a rooftop of a hotel used to house witnesses; it's a warning."

As Bones reached down the victim's throat to examine something stuck down it, Booth had a feeling that this case was about to become far more complicated than the hit this appeared to be…

* * *

"What you're asking is the kinda thing that destroys careers," Caroline said, Booth left with little else to do but try and eat a dough ball as he listened to his friend in the diner. "From the time I was a little girl, I dreamed of putting bad men in jail- put that back- which is why I became an Assistant United States Attorney."

"OK," Booth said, ignoring the dismissal of his attempt to grab a snack as he looked at his friend. "Look, you don't have to help me-"

"Of course I have to help you," Caroline said, glaring at him. "Marvin Beckett is still a hero to a lot of African Americans; some of us never believed he killed this FBI boy. Now you buy me breakfast, tell me you found a way to clear his name, release him out of wrongful incarceration after thirty years? I can not walk away- which you already know."

"Maybe you should have some more coffee…" Booth began, trying not to look so surprised at the fact that Caroline had hit him as well as distracting himself from the point Caroline had brought up that he'd tried not to consider earlier; in his experience, conspiracies involved people willing to go to great lengths to cover them up…

"Of course I want more coffee," Caroline said indignantly. "We have to come up with our plan of attack."

"OK," Booth said. "Well, I was thinking Judge Moran…"

"We should exhume Gus Harper," Caroline said firmly. "See if your genius, scientist partner, can ascertain whether he _died_ in the manner the FBI said he died thirty years ago."

"Moran's got a long-" Booth began.

"No," Caroline interrupted. "We want Kemper."

"Hang 'em high Kemper?" Booth asked, looking incredulously at her.

"Hey, I'm ruining my career, I'm doing it my way, understand?" Caroline said. "Now, take a doughnut hole. I'm offering."

"Thanks," Booth said, taking the offered snack out of a lack of anything else to do.

Moments like this made him wish that he'd maintained contact with some people from Angel's life; Gunn's legal knowledge might have been an uncomfortable topic even before Illyria, but it definitely been useful during their time at Wolfram & Hart, and it wasn't exactly fair on Caroline to rely on her as their legal back-up at times like this…

* * *

"Delaney's murder, the threats on Russ's life; this is all happening now because of a little metal dolphin we found on your mother's grave," Booth said, looking at Bones as they waited in his office, Booth tossing the accumulated related files for this case onto his desk as he addressed Bones. "FBI field unit in Denver traced it to a local artist in Mead, Colorado."

"Who identified Dad as the buyer…" Bones finished, looking at the small dolphin in the plastic bag. "But Delaney left the FBI, fifteen years ago."

"And somebody told him about your dad," Booth concluded.

"And didn't tell you?" Bones asked.

"They're part of the conspiracy," Booth said.

"You must be annoyed," Bones said, looking thoughtfully at him.

"Yeah; you know what, I am," Booth said grimly. "And I don't like finding out there's a dirty FBI Agent in this building."

He might not have been affected them directly, but considering the trouble that Gwendolyn Post had posed for the Scooby Gang during her time in Sunnydale- particularly regarding the consequences of her presence for Faith's future with the group-, to say nothing of that black ops unit that had nearly killed Buffy and Faith after Faith got out of her coma, he felt that he was entitled to be particularly annoyed at the thought of conspiracy in an organisation created with the intention of protecting others…

With that said, he walked over and closed the door of his office; their earlier conversation had been awkward, but what they were about to discuss was too dangerous to chance anyone else overhearing it.

"Here's what I think happened," he said, as he turned back to look at Bones. "Delaney goes to your father, he asks him to hand over the evidence, he doesn't do it, he kills you or Russ."

"Dad calls Russ to warn him… and then… kills Delaney," Bones finished, a pained expression on her face at the thought.

"Guts him, burns him, leaves a calling card," Booth said. "Don't mess with Max Keenan's kids."

It was a grim message, but it was a message that Booth could agree with; after what he'd done to protect Connor from Wolfram & Hart, it wasn't something completely outside his experience.

"Am I supposed to like that?" Bones asked, her voice low and her expression reflecting how close she was to crying at that thought.

"Ya know, Bones," Booth said, looking solemnly back at her, "I'll take a stand up crook over a crooked cop any day of the week."

It was a legally complicated thing to say, but in this kind of situation Booth felt justified in making such a statement; honest criminals might seem like a contradiction, but at least men like her father had a code and stuck to it, even if he committed actions that others regarded as illegal.

In a weird way, he was relieved when Caroline showed up revealing that they had their warrant; things might be complicated, but at least they had some kind of plan to deal with things from here on in that saved him having to discuss that issue any more than he had to…

* * *

"You're what's known as a real pain in the ass, Agent Booth," Deputy Director Kirby said, glaring at Booth as he closed the door to the conference room, Booth sitting in a chair while two other agents stood outside.

"Yes, sir," Booth replied, his gaze fixed ahead of him, once again mourning the days when he had been free to express his opinion of his 'superiors'; Kirby was a dick who'd made it this far through political connections rather than any real investigative talent, but if he wanted to keep his job he had to just grin and bear it….

"I just had my testicles handed to me by the Attorney General of the United States of America," Kirby said, scorn in his voice as he paced behind Booth. "He wanted to know why this Marvin Beckett issue wasn't done slowly and carefully with greater forethought and tact. You know what I told him?"

"No, sir," Booth replied; this was more frustrating than dealing with the Oracles, since he was unable to actually _say _what was on his mind out of fear of how Kirby would react.

"I told him, I did not know," Kirby said, leaning over to glare at Booth.

"Sir," Booth began- maybe if he had the chance to say his piece Kirby wouldn't be as angry as he might have been-, "I had to do it the way I did it because the FBI is-"

"Not. Your. Decision, Booth," Kirby said firmly. "You're suspended without pay. Gun, ID, Security card, please."

"Sir, I'm entitled to the reading of the charges against me," Booth said, trying to protest without making it obvious; he'd generally been good at these kind of games, but situations like this pushed him to the limit regarding what he'd be willing to tolerate, particularly when he couldn't be sure of the other party's motives…

"The charges against you, is that I was pissed upon from a very great height," Kirby said, glaring contemptuously at him. "You're outta here in ten minutes."

With nothing else to do, Booth removed his gun and badge and put them on Kirby's desk, already wondering what he was going to do next; without any official access to the case records, this was about to get _very _complicated…

* * *

"Can they do that?" Bones asked, as the squint squad sat awkwardly around the darkened lab, Booth leaning on the rail in more casual attire than his usual clothing choice when here on a case. "Just kick you out without any warning?"

"Well, the two guys standing behind me, with the guns, seemed to think so," Booth said.

"As you can see," Zack put in from his position at a desk in the corner of the lab, "Harper's ribs and sternum were practically obliterated by the two shots to his torso."

"Zack," Angela said, turning her head slightly to address the intern behind her. "Booth got fired."

"Suspended, not fired," Bones corrected.

"Suspended's FBI speak for fired," Cam said, once again demonstrating the political knowledge that had gotten her the current job in the first place.

"You know what hurts the most?" Booth said, stuck for anything else he could say to lighten the current mood. "They took the car. Got no wheels."

"The bullets themselves, removed from the body, of course, but Hodgins found some very small fragments," Zack continued.

"Copper, lead, polymer," Hodgins said as he picked up the story. "This is a conspiracy, baby…"

"Guys," Cam said with a firm tone of interjection in her voice. "What we're dealing with here is that _Booth_ won't be working with us anymore."

"Well, I got my own gun," Booth said, avoiding looking at the group behind him. "It's just… God, why did they have to take the company car?"

"I assume the only way Booth can get his car back would be to solve the case on his own and that we'd help," Zack said, turning around to look at the team.

"Oh no," Booth said, getting up from the railing to look at the group; after what had happened the last time he'd tried to make a stand against a large force using him for their own purposes, he wasn't going to even ask anyone to do the same thing again. "No, no; I can't let you guys do that."

"Anyone that wants to help Booth, raise their hands," Bones said, followed by her and everyone else raising their hands.

It might be a bleak situation facing him, but the knowledge that these men and women were still willing to work with him when he didn't have anything official to contribute to their work apart from someone to do the physical work…

Booth wasn't sure he'd ever felt more grateful to know this assorted team of scientists and geeks than he did now; they knew at least some of what he'd been capable of, and they still accepted him.

"All right," Zack said, after everyone had lowered their hands, indicating a CGI-generated bullet on his computer screen heading for its target. "I reverse-engineered to find the most likely design of the bullets. After the bullet spread, lead pellets were released, like buckshot."

"Wait a second," Booth said, his eyes narrowing as he studied the bullet on the screen. "That's a home-made round invented back in the seventies."

"We're talking a military-issues, M40A1 sniper rifle," Hodgins put in.

"Nice," Booth said, nodding in approval at Hodgins' contribution.

"Dude," Hodgins said with a modest nod, "what you call being a 'conspiracy theorist', I call being well informed."

"Wait," Angela asked, "Gus Harper was murdered by a military sniper?"

"Who makes his own rounds," Booth added.

"Maybe we can compare it to the bullet that grazed Russ?" Bones asked.

"I'm a civilian," Booth pointed out grimly. "We don't have access to that round. Maybe Caroline can help us."

Things might be getting more and more complicated, but at least they still had each other to work on cracking this case…

* * *

"Why are you mad at me?" Booth asked as they sat in Bones's office, Booth on the couch while Bones sat at her computer.

"I need a gun," Bones said in frustration.

"No, you don't," Booth said; he couldn't believe they were going back to this argument after the discussions they'd had about this last year. "You got me; I'm your gun. You want equipment, here," he continued, placing his handcuffs on the table before him, "have these, alright. New division of labour; I shoot 'em, you cuff 'em."

"Why didn't you tell me you had Father Coulter under surveillance?" Bones asked, still staring at the computer screen.

"It is my job to find your dad and put him in prison," Booth replied (One of the parts of his job he felt more ambiguous about; in the past, he'd needed to justify potentially awkward decisions he'd made because he chose to make them, but nowadays he could do things like put people under surveillance and claim that he had to do them because of his job).

"And you don't think I'll help?" Bones asked, turning to look at him.

"What?" Booth said; every time he thought he understood women, he fell for one who turned everything he thought he knew about the gender on its head. "He's your father; I really don't think I should have to ask you to help?"

"He abandoned me, Booth," Bones pointed out. "And that's the best thing you can say about him."

"Your father lives by a certain code, and part of that code is defending his family by whatever means necessary," Booth replied.

"You mean killing people and setting their corpses on fire," Bones said grimly as she got up from her chair.

"Any means necessary sorta covers that," Booth said as he stood up to better address his partner.

"You respect him?" Bones asked.

"I'm just saying," Booth clarified, "in his world, he's a very honourable man."

"That's ridiculous," Bones said. "There's only one world; it's this one."

"Would that be the one world where you're mad at me for trying to catch your father or the other world where you actually want him caught?" Booth asked, ignoring the part of him that wanted to reveal to Bones how he had lived in a world beyond what she could imagine; it would just make it all more complicated and this was far from the right time to reveal his past as Angel to her.

"Neither," Bones said firmly.

"Well, you have to pick one," Booth countered (He vaguely registered someone walking into the office, but he was too caught up in the current debate to look and see who it was).

"Either," Bones said, the confusion on her face making it clear that even she wasn't sure what she was saying right now. "Both."

"Doctor Brennan, Agent Booth," Caroline said, drawing Booth's attention back to the earlier-registered visitors, which included Caroline and an older, well-built black man with greying hair and a moustache. "I thought you'd like to meet the reason we're all losing our jobs and gettin' shot at. This is Mr. Marvin Beckett."

"I wanted to thank you both, personally," Marvin Beckett said.

"You're welcome, Mr Beckett," Bones said, shaking the man's offered hand before Booth did the same.

"Thirty years ago, crooked Agents put me in jail for something I did not do," Beckett said, his tone solemn as he looked between them. "I did not kill the young FBI Agent, I did not steal the money, and I thank you for proving it to the world. That's why I'm here, to tell you to your face, to assure you I did not do those things. You freed an innocent man, and in return, I must warn you, the people that did this to me aren't just a bunch of corrupt cops. They serve masters of _much _greater influence. You're looking to bring their world down around their ears. They will strike at you. Watch yourselves."

"Here's your list of snipers from the decade of disco," Caroline said, handing a sheet of paper to Booth as Beckett walked out of the office. "This time, I'm advising you; Duck."

"Anyone you know?" Bones asked, as he studied the list while Caroline walked out of the office.

"Yeah," Booth said, his eyes scanning the list and quickly identifying the most relevant name. "The ATF ref on the task force was a marine sniper, Robert Kirby."

The implications of that discovery made sense, but they were far from encouraging; Kirby's position would make it all too easy for their enemies to know how they were progressing their current case and when he should act to stop them…

* * *

Walking up to the diner, Booth smiled at the sight of the squints sitting around inside the building, enthusiastically celebrating with Zack about his recent promotion from intern to full-time Jeffersonian staff member (As well as the resolution of another case, even if this one was only semi-satisfactory from a legal perspective considering how the killers had either just been killed or managed to escape).

"What happened?" Bones asked, walking out to join him when she registered his presence.

"Uh, the, uh, the attorney general took one look at the evidence your father provided and, you know, he reinstated me," Booth said; he wished he could sound less awkward, but the situation had been so personal for Bones that he didn't feel right sounding more enthusiastic about the fact that her father had escaped again.

"I'm glad," Bones said, smiling at him.

"Listen," Booth said- he might as well get this done right now before things became more difficult-, "we, uh, found another burned body. Same place, same setup."

"Kirby?" Bones asked.

"I'm pretty sure it was Kirby's blood in your apartment," Booth said, holding up the coin he'd found in the victim's throat.

"Dad's still trying to warn people to leave me and Russ alone," Bones said.

"No, Russ is safe with your father," Booth corrected. "They're warning people to stay away from you."

The awkward expression on his partner's face revealed how conflicted she was about that knowledge more than words ever could have.

"You know what?" Booth said. "I'm sorry… that you had to go through it again. Watching your family drive off, leaving you behind… I'm sorry."

"My father is… is-" Bones began.

"He's your dad, and he loves you," Booth said, looking at Bones for a few moments to ensure that she understood what he was saying.

"You know," Bones said after a brief pause, looking out at the street in frustration, "I'm just… I'm just one of those people who doesn't get to be in a family. That's…"

"Listen, Bones, hey," Booth interjected, lifting her head up as he placed his finger under her chin to look her in the eyes, turning her around to face him once more. "There's more than one kind of family."

He knew what that meant more than most; he might have failed with his own biological family, but he'd found a new family after moving to Los Angeles, and never regretted the bonds he'd formed even after they'd ended.

After the two had stared at each other for a moment, the moment was broken when Zack suddenly began knocking on the window to get their attention; Booth wondered what the significance was of the orange-and-green hat Zack was wearing on his head, but had a feeling that he wouldn't want to know the answer because it would be so frustrating to listen to…

"Well, hell," Booth said, grinning broadly, "Zack got the job, right?"

"Come in and congratulate him," Bones said.

"Nah, you know he's your squints, not my squints…" Booth said; he didn't want to be one of those guys who dropped in on his friends' parties…

"No, Booth," Bones said, wrapping her arm around his and leading him towards the diner door, "we are, all of us, your squints."

That simple statement meant more to Booth than he could ever express; he might be glad to be human, but he always regretted having lost contact with his family from his days as Angel, so the knowledge that these people still saw him as any kind of family meant more to him than he could ever satisfactorily express.

Even Bones's weird request for him to pat Zack on the shoulder couldn't dim his mood; his partner was safe, he had his job back, and the squints would remain a team for the foreseeable future.

All was right in their own worlds for the foreseeable future…


	35. The Man in the Cell

Disclaimer: I own neither Angel or anything associated with him, and "Bones" is equally out of my reach control-wise

Feedback: Appreciated

Angel of the Bones

As far as threats from the past coming back to haunt them went, Howard Epps might not be the most dangerous threat they could have faced- Booth could think of a few vampires he wouldn't like to deal with again even if he was still Angel-, but the guy was still not something to be sneezed at; the impact that he'd had on the woman sitting in front of him right now was proof enough of that.

"I'm no longer involved in Howard's life," Caroline Epps said, putting down a picture of her and Epps as she looked at the two of them.

"It's hard to believe, being his wife and all," Booth noted (He didn't actually believe she'd had any contact with Howard after their last case involving the psycho in question, but better to rule her out now than later).

"Ex-wife," Caroline corrected. "The judge signed my divorce papers last week."

"Why didn't it work out, exactly?" Booth asked; she seemed like a genuine victim, but deliberately trying to provoke her would be more likely to give him an honest response. "Was it a lack of quality time or all the women he bludgeoned to death?"

"I _thought_ I could help Howard, but he used me," Caroline said, glaring firmly at Booth. "I haven't had any contact with him in over six months."

"I'd like to place you in protective custody until we find him," Booth said, quickly amending his previous approach; everything she'd shown was too honest to be a deception.

"That won't be necessary," Caroline said, as she reached down to pick up her bag.

"Mrs. Epps," Bones said, "the women in Howard's life don't tend to live very long."

"I appreciate your concern, Doctor Brennan," Caroline said, looking neutrally back at the anthropologist, "but I've changed job, apartments-"

"_We_ found you," Booth interjected. "Hey, Howard could too."

"I have a new life and a new boyfriend," Caroline said, looking pleadingly between them. "Raymond's a good man. If he found out…"

"We all have secrets in our past, Mrs Epps," Bones said. "Admittedly, not as bizarre as yours, but you shouldn't risk your life just because you're embarrassed to tell your boyfriend the truth."

God, if Bones thought of Caroline's past as bizarre, what would she make of _his _if she ever learned the truth about it…?

"Howard's interest is in young blonde girls," Caroline said solemnly. "I'm not even his type."

"If he contacts you-" Booth began, as Caroline got up from her seat and headed for the door.

"I'll call," Caroline said, looking briefly back at Booth before leaving the office.

"What-?" Bones began, looking indignantly at him. "You can't let her go! She's not safe!"

"Well, I can't force her to take protection, alright?" Booth said, getting up from his position on the edge of his desk to move back into his seat behind it. "I'll have the local police drive her house every couple of hours and make sure she's safe. And you know what? You're not safe either."

"But I'm not unhinged," Bones protested. "I can take care of myself."

"You and Epps… OK, it's personal," Booth said, looking grimly at his partner, his own memories of Angelus's issues with Buffy resurfacing; what Angelus and Epps hated about Buffy and Bones differed, but what he was about to say applied to both cases. "You're everything he hates."

"And what is that exactly?" Bones asked

"Well, you know, you're a smart, strong, confident woman," Booth said, allowing Bones to smile as he continued speaking, trying not to look at her in case it sparked thoughts he should _not _be having. "And, uh, figured him out. You made him feel powerless so he's gonna want to, uh, prove that, uh, you're weak and inferior. So, you are not to go out on your own, ever."

He knew that Bones was unlikely to listen to him, but he had to make an effort; he couldn't keep an eye on his partner all the time, but he had to do what he could to keep her safe.

* * *

Walking up to the open door of Caroline Epps's old apartment, Booth held out his arm to halt his partner's further advance while using his other arm to open the already-unlocked door in front of them. Glancing back, he was only slightly surprised to see Bones holding her new gun while checking the barrel.

"You know," Booth said, partly unable to believe how 'gun-ho' his partner was being about this mess, "I could have the Bureau pull your license."

"Yeah, and I could assign Zack as your forensic anthropologist," Bones replied.

Accepting her point, Booth simply pulled out his gun and cautiously advanced into the apartment, Bones alongside him with her own weapon.

"Place hasn't been rented since she moved," Booth said, looking at the empty rooms around them, with no sign that anybody had ever even lived in this area.

"You know, it's just not logical," Bones said from her position behind him. "Playing games with us? It's just gonna lead us right to him."

Booth was about to make a comment about how serial killers preferred games for the fun of it combined with their own egos, but thoughts of explaining that issue were forgotten when Bones's attempts to turn the lights on met with failure just before he heard the sound of something humming in the next room.

"Wait," Bones said, following the direction of his gaze to the large, slightly old-fashioned fridge before them. "If the lights are off, then why is the refrigerator working?"

"Just… stand back," Booth said, moving towards the refrigerator as Bones checked another room, a quick glance over the refrigerator confirming its safety; Epps might be smart, but he wasn't technical enough to rig up a trap where the trigger wouldn't be visible right now.

"Well, it's not booby-trapped," he said, looking back at his partner as she examined another room. With Bones looking back at him, he opened the door, only to find himself looking at the grisly sight of Caroline Epps's head, sitting pathetically on the top shelf, blood pooling below the neck.

He'd seen and done a lot of sick things as Angelus, but there were times when he was amazed to see just how sick humans could be without the aid of demons; Epps had gone to this much effort to leave a goddamn clue…

* * *

As he charged towards the merry-go-round, Booth refused to even think about what had happened the last time his child had been in the vicinity of a murdering psychopath with a grudge against him; Epps wouldn't have the time to turn Parker into his twisted weapon- and it didn't seem like his style anyway-, but Booth was _not _going to let _anyone _touch his child again…

"Parker comes here every day at four with his nanny," Booth said briefly to Bones, giving her a brief explanation of how he could be so certain about this location, before he saw the nanny in question standing on the outskirts of the merry-go-round (His background checks might be overly paranoid, but they helped him remember faces). "Rose! Rose, where's Parker?"

"On the merry-go-round," Rose replied, looking at Booth in surprise before a glance at the ride in question showed that it was now empty. "He was just there!"

Booth barely stopped to think; ignoring the other children gathered around, he literally jumped onto the merry-go-round and began to call his son's name, his mind barely registering Bones and Rose doing the same on either side as he frantically sought his son, refusing to allow history to repeat itself in such a horrific manner…

The sound of his name only jarred his attention away from the roundabout because of how it disrupted the pattern, but when he followed Bones's attention to where Parker was standing near an ice-cream vendor, Booth running towards his son even as hi brain processed his presence

"Daddy!" Parker said, running towards him with an ice cream cone in his hand, Booth scooping his son up into his arms in relief.

"Look," Parker said, after Booth had put him down. "A man brought me ice cream."

"Alright," Booth said, immediately tossing the cone in question to the ground; Epps was probably too cocky to try something that obvious, but he wasn't about to chance it.

"That was my favourite," Parker said, looking upset.

"I'll buy you another one, OK?" Booth said, looking firmly at his son. "Just listen to me; what did this man look like?"

"A man," Parker replied. "He said he was your friend."

"What did he say to you?" Booth asked (He had to constantly tell himself to remain calm; Parker was only five, he couldn't be expected to have picked up much detail about someone when he didn't know it was going to be important later). "Did he say anything else to you, Parker?"

"To use my napkin," Parker said, looking at his fallen ice-cream.

"Booth," Bones said, picking up the napkin that had been wrapped around the cone and handing it to him, writing being revealed as he unfolded it.

"'My name is Parker. Ask me how I can solve this case'," Booth read, before he threw the napkin away and re-focused his attention on Parker. "Alright; what else did he tell you?"

"Nothing," Parker said, sniffing. "He was just nice."

"OK, just listen to me, Parker, all right?" Booth said. "This man is trying to hurt Daddy's friends, okay? So I need you to think. What else did he say to you?"

"I didn't do anything wrong," Parker protested. "He said he was your friend."

"You never talk to strangers, OK?" Booth said, his voice raising as he looked at his son; better to scare him now and make sure he remembered this later than let him forget it and repeat the whole mistake. "You never…!"

Seeing his son beginning to cry even before Bones placed a hand on his shoulder, Booth stopped yelling and focused on giving him a hug, unable to believe how far he'd almost gone. "I'm sorry, buddy. It's okay. Alright? I'm sorry."

"What's going on, Mr Booth?" Rose asked, looking at him in confusion.

"There's just an investigation going on, OK, Rose?" Booth said, looking at the young woman. "I'm gonna have these agents take you and Parker home and keep you safe. Alright?"

Pulling away from his son for a moment, Booth waited until Parker had nodded in acceptance before pulling him back into another hug.

"I'm sorry," he said, feeling the inadequacy of that statement but stuck for anything else to do. "It's OK."

He hated scaring his son like that, but if it was a choice between scaring Parker now and losing him later…

* * *

Sitting alongside Cam's bed during a quiet moment in the current case, Booth wondered if this was how Wesley had felt during that whole mess with Fred before Illyria had been released.

As much as they'd all come to accept Illyria as part of the group towards the end, the fact remained that she'd killed their friend and left Wesley emotionally and psychologically scarred; Fred's loss had ensured that Wesley would never be the same in the aftermath, and whatever 'comfort' Illyria had provided by reminding him of Fred had been simultaneously tainted by the very thing that let them tolerate her…

No.

Distracting himself by thinking of Illyria wouldn't work; he had to face facts right now.

The real reason he was so concerned about Cam's current condition… was that he _wasn't _concerned.

He'd miss her if she died, of course, but he'd felt more concerned when Buffy was in hospital after he'd overdone it feeding on her while he was poisoned, and then he'd been fairly sure that she'd actually recover from it (He briefly recalled the time he'd been worried about Bones when she was abducted last year, but quickly pushed that aside; this was _not _the time for that)…

The sensation of movement under his hands brought his attention back to the present, Booth looking at Cam in relief as she finally began to stir.

"Hey!" he said, squeezing her hand as Cam opened her eyes with a sickly wheeze for oxygen. "Welcome back."

"Why can't I breathe?" Cam gasped weakly, her voice virtually hoarse as she looked at him.

"Your saw," Booth explained. "It, um, it hit some kind of poison, but, uh, you're gonna be alright."

"Zack?" Cam asked.

"He's fine, OK?" Booth said, stilling holding onto her hand. "Everyone's… Everyone's good."

As Cam nodded, Booth felt a need to make a start on what he'd just realised he had to say; this probably wouldn't come across as effectively as he'd like, but if he didn't make a start now it would just be harder to do it later.

"I'm- I'm…" he began, looking down at the hand he held in his, trying to find the right words, before he looked back at her. "I'm so sorry, you know, that I put so much pressure on you to hurry. I didn't, uh -"

"Not your fault," Cam said, still wheezing as she weakly nodded at him in reassurance. "Epps did this to me."

"Hey," Booth said, trying to change the subject to something more amusing. "Your family's coming."

"Oh God," Cam said, coughing again. "And I thought poison… was my biggest problem."

The joke was weak, but Booth had to admit that it prompted a slight chuckle from him; after what she'd been through, it was good to see that she could still find something humorous…

* * *

As he slowly walked into Bones's apartment, Booth wasn't remotely surprised to find himself looking at Epps- the slicked back hair and the long coat made him look a bit like a tanned Spike, but that would just make this all the more enjoyable-; the man might consider himself to be some twisted genius, but after Booth's own years playing games as Angelus, he'd learned from both sides of the coin that the easiest mistake any genius could make was to forget that other people could be smart too.

"Dead end," he said as he aimed his gun at Epps, Bones emerging from the bathroom with a running shower behind her and a gun in her hand aimed at Epps.

"You won't let me shoot him, will you?" Bones asked.

"You knew he was gonna be here, didn't you?" Booth countered; the shower thing might have been a basic trap, but so many people overlooked the basics that it was more than enough for this purpose.

"It's the only scenario that made sense," Bones responded.

"Oh, what," Booth said, his attention returning to Epps as the killer glanced at the open door behind him, "you heading for the balcony, Howie? Hope you can fly, cause that's about a fifty foot drop, right?"

"Yeah," Bones said, attention still fixed on Epps.

"How did you know?" Epps asked.

"Plaster dust in the poison," Bones commented.

"Renovations to the apartment next door," Booth put in.

"You're not all that smart, turns out," Bones said, perfectly highlighting Booth's own thoughts on the matter; Epps wasn't exactly stupid, but he'd been so keen to leave clues to mock them that he'd left too many.

"One minute," Epps said, staring coldly at his partner. "All I want is one minute alone with you."

"Fine with me," Bones said, making it clear how that minute would go if she had her way.

"Don't provoke the lunatic, alright?" Booth said, before looking at Epps. "You've got nowhere to go."

"I'm not going back to jail," Epps said.

"You see, that's really not your decision, Howie," Booth said. "Get your hands up. Drop the crowbar."

On reflection, that last comment was where things had gone wrong. As though only just reminded what he was specifically holding, Epps hurled the crowbar at Booth's head. He managed to avoid the weapon, but the crowbar still broke a lamp on a table behind him, with the distraction giving Epps time to run for the door.

"In the line of fire, Bones," Booth called out, not wanting his partner to shoot him by accident as he ran after Epps, grabbing the killer's right hand as the guy vaulted off the balcony.

It might be more than he deserved, but the guy wasn't going to die like this…

"You're not getting away, Howard," he said, glaring at Epps, barely conscious of Bones hurrying over to join him.

"Look who the killer is now, Agent Booth," Epps said; Booth was sure that the guy had been holding on to the balcony earlier, but now he was just hanging by Booth's outstretched arm and nothing else…

"A little help here, Bones?" Booth called over to his partner. "I got nothing but dead weight here. Help me."

"Sorry," Bones said, after a few moments of reaching for the outstretched arm confirmed that she was unable to make contact; the angle just wasn't right. "Can't reach."

"Grab the railing," Booth called over, still straining to keep a hold as he glared at Epps.

"You're gonna drop me anyway," Epps said, what could have almost been fear on his face if Booth hadn't known he was dealing with a sociopath. "Just get it over with."

"You son of a bitch," Booth said, glaring at Epps; there were times when the fact that killers like Epps thought that everyone thought like them was a useful edge, but at moments like this…

"Are you saying you don't want me dead?" Epps countered.

"Yeah," Booth retorted; if it was possible, he preferred putting the human criminals in jail to reflect on what they'd done, even when he'd been Angel. "I'm not you."

"Oh, really?" Epps said, that frustrating self-satisfied smirk on his face despite the fear still in his eyes. "You're not thinking of the world with me still in it? Going after Doctor Brennan, your son-"

"I'm not you," Booth repeated, still straining to hold on to Epps's arm…

He didn't even remember when he specifically let go.

As Epps fell to the pavement below, Booth barely even registered the other sounds around him, his gaze focused on the man he'd failed to save.

Maybe Epps hadn't deserved to live, but prison would have been easier than what was waiting for him now…

* * *

Walking back after putting Parker back on the merry-go-round, Booth wasn't even particularly surprised to see Bones standing nearby; it sometimes seemed that very little- with the obvious exception of issues relating to her family- could make Bones stop when she really wanted to do something.

"Hi," he said, walking over to her. "How'd you know I was here?"

"Saturday morning," Bones replied, indicating the roundabout behind them. "How's Parker?"

"Yeah, I'm afraid I freaked him out the other day," Booth said, walking away from the roundabout as they spoke. "He's really scared of this place. Now I gotta put that right."

"That's you all over- putting things right," Bones said, sitting down next to him on a nearby bench, allowing them to look at Parker without being too obvious about it. "Cam gets released from the hospital today."

"Yeah," Booth said, after a moment's silence.

"What?" Bones asked, looking curiously at him.

"You know," he said- what he was about to say was crap, but it was the best he could come up with to justify his decision to everyone else without getting into things _he _wasn't ready to talk about-, "what happened to Cam happened because… we had a personal relationship."

"Had?" Bones repeated curiously.

"Yeah," Booth said; thank God for official regulations for providing him with a cover for this mess. "People who work in… high-risk situations; they can't be involved… romantically because it… leads to things like what happened."

"High-risk situations," Bones repeated.

"Every single day it's with us," Booth said firmly, his mind flashing back to his and Buffy's attempts to fight together even after they'd learned about the clause on his soul; that might have been a particularly extreme example, but what it had highlighted still applied. "There's this line, and… we can't cross it. You know what I'm saying?"

"Yes," Bones said. "I understand."

Booth just hoped that she got what he was really trying to say without understanding the meaning behind it; that was something he wasn't even entirely he was ready to admit to _himself _right now, never mind anyone else.

He still had no idea how he was going to help Parker get over his recent panic, and then there was this whole mess with how he felt about everything...

God, life had been easier when the clause was there as an excuse.


	36. The Girl in the Gator

Disclaimer: I own neither Angel or anything associated with him, and "Bones" is equally out of my reach control-wise

Feedback: Appreciated

Angel of the Bones

If there was one thing Booth hated about relying on official paperwork to get anywhere in his current job, it was the need to be evaluated by a psychiatrist after 'difficult experiences'; he'd endured so much crap over his years as Angel- Liam had a pretty easy life and Angelus couldn't go mad as he had never experienced anything that he'd find that psychologically disturbing-, even without his time in Hell taken into account, that he was pretty sure he would have gone crazy already if he was going to. All that could be accomplished by a meeting with a psychologist was putting himself in a position where he might let the truth about himself slip because he had to be 'honest', which was why he tried to avoid getting in this kind of position before now…

Still, he was here now- the fact that the appointment was at the guy's home rather than an office was a surprise, but he supposed the guy was trying to be 'informal'-, so all he could do was try and get through it without letting too much slip before he was declared mentally competent to get back in the field.

Walking up to the house, he was surprised to find a man in a grey sleeveless pullover and a dark blue checked shirt, long hair hanging down over his forehead and ears and a prominent nose, working on what looked like a barbeque in the front garden.

"Doctor Wyatt?" he said.

"Ah, Agent Booth, is it?" the man said, standing up and smiling at Booth as he held out his hand. "Yes. Gordon, Gordon Wyatt."

"Right… You're the shrink?" Booth said, surprised at how relaxed the man was about his appearance; he'd yet to encounter a psychiatrist who didn't think dressing up in a suit would improve his appearance, but this guy actually appeared rather nonchalant about his appearance.

"Uh, shrink, yes, meaning psychiatrist," Wyatt said, a slightly bemused tone the only sign of surprise.

"That's great, Doc," Booth said, pulling the form out of his pocket and holding it out to the other man; he might as well just be direct about this issue and hope for the best. "How's about you just sign my piece of paper here and I'll get back to work?"

"Uh, certainly," Wyatt said, dismissing Booth's subsequent attempt to pass him a pen. "No, no, I have a pen."

"OK," Booth said, relieved at how straightforward this seemed to be; he'd be back in action in no time…

"Do you mind if I ask what exactly it was that you did?" Wyatt asked, pausing just as he was about to sign the paper.

"Yeah," Booth said, making his tone abrupt. "I shot a truck."

"Ah, full of terrorists, no doubt?" Wyatt said, smiling in understanding. "Or plutonium, or fleeing felons, was it?"

"No," Booth said; he was sure that Wyatt knew what the truck had actually been- that guy's expression was too eager for him to be ignorant-, but he couldn't exactly argue about the guy's methods without getting himself in more trouble, and now he was stuck admitting to what he'd done all over again. "It was an ice cream truck."

"Do you have a good reason for firing on it?" Wyatt asked, looking quizzically at him.

"Yeah," Booth said, fully aware of the inadequacy of his explanation as he gave it. "The music… it was bothering me."

"Ahhh," Wyatt said.

"Yeah, there was a speaker in the clown's mouth," Booth continued, stuck for anything else to do as Wyatt just 'oh'ed in response to that statement as well. "Yeah, I just pulled out my gun, you know, and… it was gone."

"So the FBI sent you to me, because you shot a clown?" Wyatt asked, putting the lid on his pen and folding the form up.

"Not a real clown!" Booth protested; he had enough problems without this guy saying things that could imply that he'd killed someone.

"I suggest you cogitate on the underlying reasons you shot that clown while I make us some tea," Wyatt said, handing the form back to Booth

Booth had no idea how he was supposed to react to that; he couldn't even remember the last time he'd been in the presence of tea- he wasn't sure if Wesley had ever drunk any, he'd never socialised enough with Giles for that to be a factor, and nobody else he'd known had any particularly strong feelings towards the drink-, and who the hell used words like 'cogitate' any more?

* * *

"Oh, splendid!" Wyatt said, examining Booth's progress on the barbeque pit as the agent examined the boundaries he'd set up around the pit area; the guy might have some odd ideas about how to 'assimilate', but at least he was putting some effort into it. "So it was your father who taught you to read plans, was it?"

"Wrong tree doc; Dad and I were tight," Booth said (It was a lie in either set of memories, but that was an issue he wasn't willing to talk about to someone he'd only just met, especially when he was _sure _that issue had nothing to do with his recent actions).

"No, it's just that earlier you said that you weren't used to drinking tea with men," Wyatt said. "Which suggests to me that you're usually pretty rigid with your assignment of gender roles."

"What?" Booth said, looking at Wyatt in surprise; the implications of that statement might be varied, but he could definitely put an end to speculation that the obvious explanation was an accurate assessment of his mental state. "No, no! My partner is a woman, 'kay? A woman who needs my help."

"But are you currently involved with anyone?" Wyatt asked.

"Just broke up with someone, OK?" Booth said; the Cam thing might have been awkward and somewhat confusing at the time, but at least the ending was definitive. "ME! And I ended it."

"And… how long had you been involved with her?" Wyatt asked. "Or… him?"

"Her," Booth said firmly (Angelus had indulged once or twice, but that was Angelus and it had more been about some freaky dominance vampire-psychology thing that he just didn't get when he was human). "Let's get that straight, OK? _Her_! Couple months this time."

"This time?" Wyatt asked with a probing expression, Booth cursing his slip of the tongue even as he knew he had to commit himself to explaining that particular detail now.

"We got off… we'd gone out before," he explained, stuck for anything else he could say now that he'd brought that issue up; he wasn't even sure why he'd started seeing Cam again himself, and had serious doubts about his ability to explain that issue to someone else, even if he had to do it now. "A few years ago, and… y'know, we… I broke it up, and my ex wanted to give it another go."

"Complicated," Wyatt said, in a manner that suggested he understood even as Booth knew that things were far more complicated than that; what with the way things had fallen apart with Buffy, and his possible relationship with Cordelia being cut so abruptly short before either of them could explore it further…

"Ahhh, that's it!" Booth said, seizing on the possible explanation that had just occurred to him; it was a bit weak, but maybe it would make more sense to Wyatt. "I shot the clown because I can't let go of the women in my life! Ah, thanks doc! Now I can go back to work, and you can sign the paper!"

"Excellent theory, but quite wrong and you're out of time," Wyatt said, dismissing Booth's attempt to hand the form to him once more. "Tomorrow all right for you?"

Booth really hated his life right now; no matter what he did, he was stuck talking to a guy who just wouldn't give up trying to get inside his head because he had no idea what was really in there, bringing up irrelevant issues and questions that risked exposing his biggest secret when he was nowhere near ready for it…

* * *

Waiting outside Wyatt's house, Booth knew that what he was attempting was a long shot, but he was increasingly finding himself stuck for further ideas; since therapy probably wasn't going to get anywhere, given his inability to be totally honest with this guy, his best chance was to be direct and hope for the best.

"Oh," Wyatt said as he opened the door.

"Hi," Booth said; as always, the direct approach was the best one.

"Do we have a schedule?" Wyatt asked, in that tone that showed he knew they didn't but was going along with this turn of events to find out more (The guy was surprisingly hard and easy to read; it was rather confusing).

"Uh, listen," Booth said- God, things like this always seemed fine until you actually had to do them- as he pulled out the form, "I really need to get back to work, so why don't you just give me one of those clown restraining orders and sign my paper?"

"Have you had an insight as to why you shot at that clown?" Wyatt asked, just as Booth's phone started to ring.

"Yeah, you know what, I have some insight; it's right here," Booth said, pointing to his cellphone as he pulled it out of his pocket. "It's my Bones calling, my partner, right?"

Not giving Wyatt a chance to question his choice of terms, he quickly answered the phone, leaving Wyatt to close the door of his house as he turned around to talk to her in private. "Yeah, Bones?"

"_So when are you coming back again_?" Bones asked, sounding slightly bored.

"What, aren't you playing nice with Sully?" Booth said; he knew from experience that Bones could be tricky to work with, but he'd thought that Sully's manner would make it easier for her to get along with him.

"_I'm just not sure how serious he is about his job_," Bones clarified.

"Well, look, he's one of the best, all right?" Booth said, feeling the need to defend his colleague even if he got her point; he could never understand why Sully would join the FBI and continue studying for so many other varying jobs. "He just likes to keep his options open."

"_I've noticed_," Bones said (Booth thought it sounded like she was eating, but he wasn't going to criticise her for that; knowing her, she'd been so busy she'd missed a meal or two).

"Listen Bones," Booth said- he wouldn't normally share this kind of thing, but with his own partner's safety involved here, he thought it right to let her know-, "Sully… he lost his partner about… a year ago, all right? Something like that happens, you hear that clock on the inside ticking just a little bit louder. So you know what, you're in good hands."

He just wished that he didn't have to speak from personal experience on that topic; he might not have actually been reminded of his mortality by Doyle's death, considering that he'd been immortal at the time, but it had reinforced the risks he ran by working so closely with mortals, and then there'd been Cordelia's coma and Fred being taken by Illyria…

The sight of Wyatt approaching once more drew Booth's thoughts back to the present; he wasn't going to discuss those losses with anyone unless he had to.

"Here he comes," he said to his partner, "so gotta go, gotta go, gotta go."

As Wyatt walked up to Booth after he closed his cellphone, Booth sighed; after what had just happened, he felt that Wyatt deserved something more than what he'd been getting so far. "All right, so maybe I am a little bit irritable."

"Why do you think that might be?" Wyatt asked.

"Don't they give you papers, and files, and reports?" Booth asked, only to be met with a stare from Wyatt; clearly, this guy believed in the patients discussing what made them come here in the first place. "All right; me and my partner caught up to this serial killer named Howard Epps, and he died."

"And whose fault was that?" Wyatt asked, sitting on the edge of the garden table as Booth sat down in a nearby seat. "Yours or your partner's?"

"No, no, he jumped over that balcony…" Booth began, laughing slightly sarcastically. "Maybe 'cause of her. Sometimes I think he had the right idea."

"And where were you when Mr. Epps fell?" Wyatt asked.

"Holding his arm," Booth replied.

"No, that was before he fell, surely," Wyatt said.

"What?" Booth said, looking at the psychiatrist in confusion.

"Well," Wyatt clarified, "Mr. Epps was dangling from your arm before he fell, at which point he was no longer dangling but falling. Attached to you, he was alive, no longer attached, dead."

"I don't feel guilty about that," Booth said; he might have wanted the guy to go to prison, but he wasn't going to regret that a monster like that was burning in Hell. "I mean Epps is a serial killer, tried to kill my partner and threatened my son; I was glad when he hit that pavement."

"Do you think about suicide often?" Wyatt asked.

"Suicide?" Booth said with a scoff; he had no idea where that question had come from, but he wasn't going to take it seriously. "Me? No, no, never."

"And yet you sometimes feel that Howard Epps had the right idea about jumping off that balcony," Wyatt said.

"It was a joke, OK?" Booth said; even at his worst after his soul had been restored, he'd never give serious thought to suicide no matter how bad he'd felt, even if that had partly been because it would have seemed like the easy way out after everything he'd done. "It was a joke."

"Yes… you do that a lot, don't you?" Wyatt said, looking speculatively at him. "Makes me feel such a bully for prying…"

With that said, Wyatt stood up to go back inside, smiling at Booth as he handed the unsigned form back to him. "Well, we'll pick up on this next time."

Booth had no idea what was just meant to have happened, but he had a feeling he'd missed something important in their recent conversation and he didn't like it.

* * *

"You know what," Wyatt said, walking out into the yard as Booth worked on the barbeque pit, coffee cups in the psychiatrist's hands as Booth continued to set up the bricks for the pit, "I'm in America, we're men, let's drink coffee, not tea, eh?"

He paused to examine the pit, which now came up to between knee and waist-height. "Oh, I say, marvelous job."

"Thank you," Booth said, taking a sip of the coffee before wincing at the taste. "That's not coffee."

"What is it?" Wyatt asked.

"I don't know what the hell it is, but it sure as hell isn't coffee, Doc," Booth said firmly as he turned his attention back to making sure that the recently-laid brick was properly balanced; he'd tasted bad coffee when working with Cordelia in the early days of Angel Investigations, and while this might not be as bad as that coffee had been, it came pretty close according to his tastebuds (Which were more sensitive to the issue now that his physiology was adapted for something other than blood).

"You tend to do things well, don't you?" Wyatt said. "Make coffee, build barbecue machines."

"It's not really a machine," Booth corrected; it was probably another psychiatric 'test', but considering that he'd known about barbeques as a concept since he was human- they had cooked outside sometimes, after all-, he felt comfortable making that distinction.

"Solve crimes, raise a son, love women, leave women," Wyatt said. "Whatever you aim at, you hit."

"That bad?" Booth asked; he'd always been rather proud of his ability to come through in a crunch, which was why he'd taken it so personally when Groo had shown up and been so much better at everything than him…

"By no means, no of course not, except-" Wyatt said.

"Oh, it's OK, here we go," Booth said, as the two of them moved to sit at the patio table. "Let me have it, Doc."

"Except it is indicative of a need to control your environment," Wyatt said, looking reflectively at him.

"Again, I ask, is that bad?" Booth said, not looking at Wyatt as he asked the question.

"No, of course not, no!" Wyatt said. "Except-"

"Except?!" Booth asked, wishing the other man would get to the point.

"Except when you shoot a clown," Wyatt pointed out.

"You know," Booth said, resenting the phrasing of that last statement, "you make it sound like it was walking and making balloon animals."

"For the most part," Wyatt said, ignoring Booth's protest, "your rebellions are small."

"Rebellions?" Booth repeated sceptically; he couldn't think of any occasion he'd rebelled against his current role as Seeley Booth.

"The colourful socks, the funky belt buckle, they're a mechanism, quiet rebellions, a way of asserting your personal control over a homogenizing organization like the FBI," Wyatt clarified. "But shooting a clown is not a quiet rebellion. Shooting a clown is quite literally deafening."

"Booth," Booth said, answering his phone as it began to ring, grateful for the opportunity to get away from this new analysis; talking about control might bring up why he felt the need to _have _control…

"_Hey, it's me_," Bones replied.

"Yeah, hold on for a second," Booth said, looking at Wyatt as he began to walk back into the house. "Wait, why is it, Doc, that every time I answer the phone, you walk away?"

"Why do you answer the phone knowing it'll make me walk away?" Wyatt replied.

There was nothing he could say to that statement without sounding petty, which prompted Booth to make a decision.

"Yeah," he said, his attention turning back to the phone in his hands, "you know what, Bones, I'm gonna have to call you back."

He wouldn't have done that normally, but his partner didn't sound like she was in any actual danger, so a lack of response wasn't going to hurt anything…

* * *

"Oh my good lord," Wyatt said, walking out to look at the completed barbeque pit as Booth stood up after connecting the gas line.

"That's right," Booth said, as he lit the barbeque, grinning at his accomplishment; in a small way, it was nice when he was able to create something rather than defining his life by his ability to kill things.

"How many bricks did you use in the end?" Wyatt asked.

"Yep, you know, one hundred and eighty," Booth said, before he produced the piece of paper once more. "Right, so you can sign away."

"What are those?" Wyatt asked, indicating the meat sitting next to the barbeque.

"Oh, those are two beautiful prime rib-eye steaks," Booth said with a smile. "Being the barbeque master that I am, I thought I'd show you how to barbeque, Doc."

"Oh, but I don't want to be shown," Wyatt said. "I want to learn trial and error."

"No, no, no," Booth said. "Doc, listen, it's better to learn off hamburgers, or sausages. You know those puppies cost fifty bucks a pop?"

"You know," Wyatt said, opening a folder that Booth hadn't realised he was holding, "according to the FBI reports there was no way you could save Epps' life. Your partner's report says the same thing. An FBI sniper from the opposite roof saw everything through his scope. According to all witnesses you have nothing to feel guilty about."

"Yeah, so?" Booth said, suddenly uncomfortable once more; he had a feeling that he knew what Wyatt was about to say, but he wasn't sure if he wanted to hear it…

"So why, in a fit of pique, did you endanger innocent people in a public thoroughfare by discharging your firearm?" Wyatt asked.

"I'm a good shot," Booth said as he closed the barbeque cover to look at the other man. "I didn't put anyone in danger."

"Your file shows you're a military sniper," Wyatt continued. "How many people have you killed?"

"Lost count," Booth said automatically; when people phrased a question like that, even with the knowledge that his Shanshu reflected how he had been forgiven, he just automatically found himself recalling the numerous faces dead because Angelus had been hungry…

"Oh, you can remember a hundred and eighty bricks, but not how many lives you've taken?" Wyatt said, looking probingly at Booth.

"Epps makes fifty," Booth said after a brief pause, making sure he had the numbers right; all he had to do was focus on the memories of the deaths that hadn't been the result of close-quarter contact, and it wasn't that hard to 'distinguish' between who he'd killed as Angelus and who he'd killed as Booth…

"Fifty what?" Wyatt asked.

"Fifty kills," Booth said.

"But, Agent Booth, you didn't kill Epps," Wyatt said automatically. "You tried to save him, remember? Or perhaps I'd better put it as a question; did Howard Epps slip from your grasp, or did you release him?"

That simple statement prompted Booth to reflect back to the moment when he had been holding on to Epps's hand over the balcony, struggling to hold on to it, the weight of the other man making it harder and harder for him to keep hold before he lost his grip, leaving Epps to hurtle towards the ground…

"Oh, come now man, it's a simple enough question," Wyatt said. "Was he indeed your fiftieth _kill_, or did you just happen to be there when he died?"

"I don't know," Booth said after a few moments of thought, flustered at the question; he'd done everything he could to hold on to Epps, but without his old vampiric strength, there was only so much he could do to keep hold of the guy in that kind of position, particularly when Epps hadn't been that committed to staying alive…

"A man like you in control of every situation and you don't know?" Wyatt asked.

"I don't know," Booth repeated, shaking his head. "I had him, and then I lost him, and then something happened in between… I don't know."

"I believe you," Wyatt said, nodding solemnly at him after a moment's silence. "Because for a man like you to admit that you don't know, to relinquish control, that could indeed argue a… disruption in your self-view that was large enough to motivate you to shoot a clown."

As much as psychology made Booth uncomfortable, he had to admit that Wyatt had a point; after so long operating outside of his own control, with Angelus in the driver's seat and then plagued by his own vampiric instincts, loss of control would be hard for him to deal with, even if he wasn't consciously acknowledging it…

"You know, I think we've made marvelous progress," Wyatt said, as he sat down to sign the form at last. "This is a close where we can certainly begin."

For a moment, Wyatt's pen hovered over the form, before he looked at Booth with a smile. "You know what, I've changed my mind; I would love for you to cook those steaks."

"I can do that," Booth said, lost for anything else to say as he took the signed form from the psychiatrist.

"Medium-rare, please, Mr G-Man," Wyatt said.

"I can do that," Booth said again

Somehow, even this attempt to give him back some sense of control just wasn't as satisfying as it would have been earlier; it just felt slightly too much like Wyatt was humouring him after everything else that had gone down, rather than actually feeling like he'd been 'cured' of his earlier issues.

In the end, even if he hadn't killed Epps, he'd still failed to save the guy, and he couldn't even before sure if he'd done it on purpose or just because there was nothing for him to do…


	37. The Man in the Mansion

Disclaimer: I own neither Angel or anything associated with him, and "Bones" is equally out of my reach control-wise

Feedback: Appreciated

Angel of the Bones

"You just don't get it," Booth said, leaning over his desk as he looked at Sully on the other side of it; he might consider the other agent a friend, but this whole situation was just so awkward he was suddenly more understanding of Xander and Gunn's use of humour in the past…

"What?" Sully said, shrugging expressively at him. "I'm asking for guy advice, you are a guy; what's not to get?"

"First of all," Booth said as he sat back down, "guys, they don't ask for advice. And secondly, I'm not going to help you get my partner into bed."

"Why not?" Sully said. "It's not like you want her."

_Damn_.

Booth _really _wished Sully hadn't said that; that simple phrase opened up so many cans of worms he wasn't sure _how _he was meant to answer it without exploring crap even he wasn't sure about yet (Like why this whole conversation reminded him of a more polite version of some of his earlier confrontations with Spike after he'd walked in on Angelus and Drusilla having sex…)

"Unless… do you want her?" Sully asked, leaning forward slightly as he spoke.

"Nah," Booth said automatically; it was easier to go there than think about making _another _relationship more complicated than it had to be; he _could _be friends with attractive women without wanting them, hadn't his time with Fred, Willow, and now Angela and Bones proven that? "Come on, Bones is, you know, my partner."

"That is why you need psychiatric treatment," Sully said, clearly ignoring what he had said earlier as he stood up and looked at Booth with a broad grin. "Because you have the hots for your partner!"

"I'm not in psychiatric treatment, OK?" Booth corrected; this might be shying away from the issue, but he preferred that to facing such difficult questions right now. "It's an evaluation; big difference."

"I can tell that Brennan is the go slow type," Sully said- Booth wasn't sure at this point if he was being deliberately frustrating or just trying to divert the topic to something else as quickly as possible, "but you gotta help me out on how slow, because too slow is worse than not slow enough."

"Agent Booth," another agent said from the office doorway, giving Booth a welcome opportunity to focus his attention back on the case, even if the news that the missing kid was in the morgue already was _far _from the kind of distraction he'd wanted…

* * *

"In point of fact, it is therapy," Doctor Wyatt said as they walked along the street towards the Royal Diner, the latest location chosen by Wyatt for a casual encounter; apparently the house was some kind of 'stage one' meeting place.

"What?" Booth said, looking at Wyatt in frustration. "No, no, it's not; it's an evaluation."

"No, I've already certified you as fit to carry a gun and go back to work," Wyatt said.

"OK, then why are we meeting?" Booth countered.

"Well, because you discharged your weapon at an ice cream truck," Wyatt said, as they crossed the street. "My provisional certification of your mental health only holds as long as you continue to meet with me."

"Great," Booth said; he _hated _being this dependent on someone else's good will, given the unpleasant memories it evoked of his time trying to manipulate the Senior Partners and the Circle (Even if he wasn't required to kill anyone this time around). "For how long?"

"'Til I'm satisfied you won't start firing at confectioners again," Wyatt said. "What's your objection to therapy?"

"You know what, doc?" Booth said, falling back on the most obvious protest he could make at this point. "I am not the kind of guy who's got anything to hide."

"You know," Wyatt said, as he opened the door of the Royal Diner, "I often find that when people declare what they are not, it almost invariably turns out that that's precisely what they are."

"Great," Booth said (In a way, that statement from Doctor Wyatt was slightly comforting; so far he wasn't showing any sign that he'd guessed at what Booth was _really _trying to hide about himself). "Then, you know what? No more declarations from me."

"You do know that what you just said is, in fact, the very avatar of a declaration," Wyatt pointed out, as they walked over to an empty table in the diner.

"Avatar, that's great," Booth said, before he beckoned at a nearby waitress over. "Can I get a cup of coffee, and a, uh…"

"Tea, please," Wyatt said, making a 'T' sign with his fingers

"Tea, yeah," Booth said, waiting for the waitress to walk away before looking at the physically older man. "Let me ask you a question, doc. Why is that every time you introduce yourself, you always say your name twice, huh? 'Hello, my name is Gordon, Gordon Wyatt'."

"Well, now you're simply lashing out, aren't you?" Wyatt said, showing no sign that he was offended by Booth's mocking imitation of his accent. "Why don't we talk about the case you're working on at the moment?"

"Why?" Booth asked, surprised at this new turn.

"Well, I am trained as a forensic psychiatrist," Wyatt said, his hands under his chin as he looked thoughtfully at Booth. "I might be able to help."

"OK, fine, great," Booth said, deciding that he might as well take the guy up on the offer and see what happened; a new opinion didn't hurt, after all. "I have a dead rich guy, works with at-risk youth, gets brutally murdered after confiscating a couple of pounds of heroin from one of his kids."

"It's interesting the first word you use to describe him is 'rich'," Wyatt said, pointing both index fingers at Booth.

"Second," Booth countered. "First description was 'dead'."

"Why do you think you have a problem with wealthy people?" Wyatt asked.

"This case is a perfect example," Booth replied (Part of it came from some of the things he'd seen working at Wolfram & Hart, dealing with people who thought that money could buy them a 'Get Out of Jail' card, but he wasn't going to get into that even if Wyatt knew the truth about him). "This guy, he makes up his own rules; what's that word that you used?"

"Entitled," Wyatt said.

"Yeah, entitled," Booth said. "That's what got him killed."

"Did this rich guy, by any chance, have a wife?" Wyatt asked.

"What, are we changing the subject now?" Booth said; this was a complete turn in the conversation as far as he could see.

"And does the rich guy's wife have a lover?" Wyatt continued.

"I just told you," Booth said, looking at the psychiatrist in frustration- did Wyatt honestly think he'd ignore other leads if he found them?-, "the murder has to do with the heroin. The boy the victim took the heroin from also turned up murdered."

"And is this boy from a modest background?" Wyatt asked.

"Doesn't get any modester," Booth said, reflecting briefly on Julio Diaz's sad end; the kid might not have had much, but now even the potential to be more was gone.

"So is there any chance that you would rather catch the boy's murderer, than the wealthy fellow's murderer, so you have decided that they're one and the same?" Wyatt asked. "Any chance that you've based this assumption purely on your bias against rich, entitled people?"

"You know what?" Booth said, humming thoughtfully for a moment to give the impression he was thinking about it before he said what he wanted to say right now. "I did the belt buckle, I did the tie, I did the socks… what else do you want from me?"

"What would you say if I told you that my name actually is Gordon Gordon Wyatt?" Wyatt said, after the two men had stared thoughtfully at each other. "That my first and middle names are the same?"

Booth had no idea what point Wyatt was trying to make at first, before a possible solution came to him; the guy was encouraging him to think about other ways to interpret things.

Under other circumstances, Booth would have found that amusing- he was an ex-vampire who'd been cursed with his soul and was now working for the FBI; if anyone had a unique perspective on things, it was him-, but the severity of the situation just left him preferring to think about things…

* * *

"Hey, Doc," Booth said, as he and Wyatt ate Chinese take-away in his office- Booth chose to take the relocation as a hopeful sign, considering that the office was definitely _his _territory-, "what we're doing here, would that be considered therapy?"

"Absolutely," Wyatt said, putting down the box he was currently eating from and sitting back in his chair. "Especially since I'm about to inquire whether you've experienced any outbursts of temper since I requested you alter your dress code."

"Yeah," Booth said, targeting the main issue he was facing right now. "One of the Squints- Hodgins- decided the rules, they didn't apply to him. He got entitled and jeopardized my murder case."

"Ah," Wyatt said. "And you confronted him physically?"

"Physical confrontation; that's my main skill," Booth said, allowing a slight edge of self-deprecating humour into his tone; there was more to him than that, and Wyatt knew it- his record wasn't that of a guy who relied on violence to get what he wanted-, but the point still stood.

"'Entitled', you say," Wyatt said thoughtfully. "Is he a wealthy man?"

"Yeah," Booth said. "Like the guy who got killed."

"The murder victim… who tried to help a child and then died for it?" Wyatt said, looking probingly at Booth. "And your… uh… Squint?"

"Yeah, squint," Booth confirmed.

"Extraordinary," Wyatt said. "Your squint tried to help a friend. So they both endeavoured to do good."

"With no clue of the way things are," Booth said, grateful that nobody from his true past could see him acting like such a hypocrite; he'd done more extreme things to help friends in the past, but it wasn't the same when you had to go by the rules to stop the bad guys…

"The way things are as defined by… a working class lad from Pittsburg?" Wyatt said, looking at Booth in a more pointed manner.

"That's right," Booth said, already prepared with a statement that covered the facts of his lives without lying about them, as he put down his take-out box and looked at Wyatt, getting up to walk back to his seat behind the desk. "Pittsburg, where I'm from, all right? From the streets. Where you get a sense of how the world really is."

"Yes, I'm sure that's true," Wyatt said. "But has it occurred to you that without the distortion of reality provided by a privileged upbringing, there'd be no such thing as the Sistine Chapel, the Taj Mahal, the Three Rivers Stadium, home of your beloved Steelers?"

"The Three Rivers Stadium was demolished in 2000," Booth said, before allowing himself to reflect on both some of Booth's memories of visiting there as a child and Angel's memories of watching games there when in his better moods. "But it was a great place, though, that Lambert …"

"No doubt," Wyatt said. "The point is, you rebel in your way, your friend rebels in his. We all of us have to overcome our upbringing, rich and poor alike."

Booth had to acknowledge that point; it wasn't like he hadn't moved on from _his _background, considering how he'd started out as a drunken layabout in the mid-1700s and ended up an FBI agent in the twenty-first century…

"You know what?" Wyatt said, looking thoughtfully at him. "I'm going to ask you to go back to your bilious socks and your ostentatious ties, and your provocative belt buckles."

"What, you're saying that if I wear flashy socks, I'm going to forgive Hodgins?" Booth said, looking at Wyatt in confusion.

"Oh Lord, I'm not sure I'm that good," Wyatt said, chuckling as he stood up. "Well, perhaps I am…"

"Hey, Doc, Doc, Doc," Booth said, before the other man walked out the door, one of the other man's earlier statements confusing him. "Uh… why is it that the belt buckle is provocative?"

"Oh, it's a modern day codpiece," Wyatt said. "It forces the eye to the groin."

When phrased like that, Booth had no idea how to respond to what he'd just been told; what did that say about his reasons for wearing it?

* * *

"I don't understand how they could do that," Bones said, the squint squad sitting around various tables as she looked at where Caroline was talking to the lawyer on the opposite side of the current case.

"Who?" Zack asked.

"Lawyers," Bones said, indicating the couple in question.

"Do what?" Angela asked.

"Be all friendly," Bones.

"The only people lawyers like are other lawyers," Cam said.

"Well, they were married," Booth said, only for everyone else to turn to look at him form his position standing slightly away from the table. "Well, they have a daughter, second year at MIT."

"Does anyone else see the irony here?" Hodgins asked (Booth wondered how Hodgins would react if he'd known just how ironic it; the idea of Booth knowing something about peoples' social lives that nobody else did was _really _bizarre) as he took a sip from his coffee.

"Listen up you people," Caroline said as she approached the table. "The verdict is gonna come down any minute. Maybe we'll win, maybe we'll lose. But this I do know. You people have got to get your sand together, do you hear me? Booth, and you scientist android brainiacs- you got something very special here, but you are losing it."

As Caroline looked at him, Booth felt uncomfortable about the stare she was giving him, but that attitude relaxed as she shifted her focus to the rest of the team. "Dropping serial killers off balconies, blabbing suspects names to vengeful fathers, cuttin' into heads before their times, getting' poisoned, getting' blown up because you go grabbing for things you shouldn't ought, taking photographs from frames, gettin' a perfectly good car smashed to bits for no good reason. Get it together! Start using your oversized heads. This is the real world."

Moments like this reminded Booth why he liked Caroline; she was the exact opposite of the lawyers he'd had to deal with/work with at Wolfram & Hart (Gunn didn't count because he'd only had the legal knowledge rather than the legal 'upbringing'; he'd known how to play the game, but he hadn't been raised on it), while also presenting a Cordelia-like directness about their problems.

That was life all over, he supposed; sometimes, even the most successful team needed an outsider to remind them that what they had was important…

"Now," Caroline said, her tone calmer as she indicated Hodgins, "I know bug man here handed in his resignation. My official Justice Department recommendation is the following: We win the case, he gets his job back. We lose, Booth shoots him."

"The jury's returned with a verdict," the baliff said, as he walked up to the table.

"OK," Caroline said, looking around at the team. "Let's go face the music."

In a strange way, as Booth got up to join the others, he had a sudden feeling that what was about to happen here would be about more than just the case…

* * *

Sitting casually in his partner's office, Booth smiled at the sight of Bones and Angela walking through the lab, talking casually with each other about something that was apparently prompting broad smiles from both women.

"…like to shower with the other guys because he diverges from the quantifiable morphological norm," Bones said as the two women walked through the door to Bones's office.

"What?" Booth said, his feet up on the desk. "What's that mean?"

"Stand out from a crowd," Bones said, as she walked back behind her desk.

"Do you have a nickname, Booth?" Angela asked inquiringly. "Something the other cops call you?"

"Why?" Booth asked, trying to sound more teasing than he felt (He didn't think he'd ever received a nickname, but he had to wonder what Angela would think if she heard that he'd once been known as 'Angel'). "What have you heard?"

"Congrats, Bren," Angela said, smiling at her before walking out of the office.

"Wow," Bones said, looking at Booth's feet on her desk. "Those socks, those are...amazing."

"That's right," Booth said, smiling back at her as he fiddled with his tie. "The socks, the tie, the belt buckle… all escape valves for my socioeconomic rage."

"I hate psychology," Bones said, as she studied the files in her hands.

"Oh, you know, they help me deal with the day-to-day irritations of dealing with people that are more privileged…" Booth said, smiling at her as he felt their routine return to normal…

"I slept with Sully last night," Bones said.

"Oh," Booth said, the return to normality shattered. "I thought you already, uh…"

"No," Bones said with a satisfied smile. "Last night."

"Ah," Booth said, getting his feet off the desk. "It's really none of my business."

"Except we're partners," Bones said.

"Yeah, there's that-" Booth said, stuck for anything else he could say that wouldn't amount to a criticism of his partner's social skills.

"And you… told me about your socks," Bones said (Once again, his partner's social ineptitude was showing through; there was a _significant _difference between telling someone about your socks and talking about your sex life).

"Mmm," he said, still lost for anything else that could be said right now. "Sex, socks… pretty much the same word."

"Do we have a case, or are you just visiting?" Bones asked.

"Yeah, I'll fill you in on the way," Booth said; it wasn't the best excuse to come along right now, but it had been something. "It's messy; better get some protection."

"Let me get my gumboots," Bones said.

As Bones walked out of the office, Booth stood up and looked down at himself with a grim sigh as he examined his attire, suddenly stuck for anything else to say or think about.

Bones had slept with Sully…


	38. Bodies in the Book

Disclaimer: I own neither Angel or anything associated with him, and "Bones" is equally out of my reach control-wise

Feedback: Appreciated

Angel of the Bones

"So," Booth said, as they walked through the marina to their latest body, boats all around them, "is it just me or is this, ya know, kinda weird?"

"What?" Bones asked.

"Well," Booth continued, "in your new book, they found a body at the marina, right?"

"You read my book?" Bones said.

"Of course," Booth said, before he focused on the relevant part of the current situation, indicating the boat just ahead of them. "Anyhow, a guy docking the boat saw something floating in the water, thought it was a dead fish, it ended up being a decomposed hand. The dive crew just located the rest of the body."

"I didn't think you'd have time to read my book," Bones said, apparently still stuck on that revelation.

"You have time to write it, I have time to read it," Booth said (He'd even given Fred's article a shot when she'd told them about it, even if he hadn't understood it, and that was before he remembered some of Cordelia's shows and auditions he'd been to back in the day). "Besides, you can't avoid the damned thing. Your book is everywhere."

"OK, bring it up," a diver said as they approached, resulting in a chain being pulled out of the water as the two investigators stood on the edge of the pier.

"Booth," Bones said.

"Yeah?" Booth said, looking over at her.

"Look," she said, indicating the moving chain in front of them.

"Wait," Booth said, looking over at one of the nearby FBI forensic agents as the reason for his partner's disquiet came to him. "Body on the anchor?"

"Yeah, tied to the chain," the forensic tech said. "Body's not tied with rope. The diver said they used-"

"Red tape," Bones said, looking at the body as it was raised from the marina, wrapped in red tape and badly decomposed, reduced to little more than skin tightly wrapped around the bone.

"How did you know?" the forensic tech asked.

"Because that's how I wrote it," Bones said, staring in silent horror at the body before them.

The nice thing about dealing with this situation was that at least Booth could be reasonably sure that he was only dealing with a human threat rather than a demonic one; there might be various demons and spells capable of making his partner experience these kind of fears, but at least on this occasion he was probably just dealing with an obsessive fan rather than a demon.

It might be dangerous, but it was still a human level of danger…

* * *

"This is a sketch based on tissue markers on the skull," Angela said, focusing her attention on the reconstruction currently displayed on her computer as various pieces of flesh were laid out over the skull.

"TCB's and lead we found in the collegian means the victims from the North end of the Chesapeake," Hodgins said, his voice low as he looked at Angela. "Probably outside Anapolis."

"Did you have to whisper that in my ear?" Angela asked, even if the smile on her face suggested that she didn't mind it.

"Just seemed right," Hodgins said, a grin on his own face as he spoke.

"OK," Booth said, leaning over to whisper in Angela's ear himself to try and get the artist back on track, "check the image against the DMV photos from Maryland."

As Angela began to search through the photos, he placed an arm around his partner's shoulder and took her off to the side, giving them a better sense of privacy for what he was about to ask.

"Bones…" he said, looking anxiously at her. "How ya holding up?"

"What do you mean?" Bones asked. "Fine."

"Ya know," Booth said, "something like this, it's understandable if you're upset."

"It's probably a coincidence," Bones.

"Hey," another voice said, Booth turning around to see Sully walking into the office. "How's it going?"

"What?" Bones said, her initial smile at Sully's presence quickly replaced with confusion. "What are you doing here?"

"Uh, yeah," Booth said; he didn't recall telling Sully about the case.

"Well," Sully said, "I heard we had a copy cat killer using your book as-"

"That hasn't been established," Bones corrected.

"Yeah, I got it covered here, Sully," Booth said; he could tolerate the guy's relationship with Bones- and why was it only _tolerate_?-, but if the guy started poking his head in to get involved with Booth's working relationship as well, he was _really _going to start getting annoyed…

"Well, two hands are better than one, Booth," Sully said as the other agent turned to look at him.

"Well, last time I looked, I have two hands, see?" Booth said, holding up his hands; he'd already had to deal with Spike trying to be him, the last thing he needed was Sully trying the same thing (And how did he end up with that analogy?). "Thanks."

"Testosterone spill on aisle 4," Angela said, even as her fingers continued working at the keyboard.

"We don't' know that my book is the cause," Bones pointed out. "So far what we do know is-"

"Someone died exactly the way described in your book," Sully interjected (Booth hated to admit it, but he partly resented the way Sully was automatically acting as though it was obvious this tied in to Bones's book; someone could have just read the book and used it as a convenient way to dispose of a body). "Do you keep any of your old fan mail?"

"No," Bones said. "I don't read it. The publicist deals with all that."

"Yeah, I mean, why are you asking, Sully?" Booth said. "I'm in charge of this investigation."

"Well, Booth, I was a profiler for two years; I have a lot of experience with these cases," Sully said (_And I don't_? Booth thought to himself in frustration, made all the worse because he couldn't voice that thought without sounding petty). "This could be someone showing what a big fan he is or someone trying to get close to her. Too close."

"I don't need to be protected…" Bones began.

"Yes, you do," Booth said, trying not to be too annoyed that Sully had said the same thing; at least they were in agreement on one point, even if he disliked the other agent's approach.

"Look," Sully said as he turned to look at Booth, "you still call the shots; I just think I'd be an asset to the team."

"OK, fine," Booth said, stuck for anything that he could say as a rejection that wouldn't come across as some degree of pathetic resentment at the other guy intruding on his 'territory'. "We send all the fan mail to Sully- in his office."

"Fine," Bones agreed. "I'll call Ellen."

"We could be dealing with a real sicko here," Sully said reflectively.

"Jim Lopata," Angela said, looking back at them. "Not the sicko, the sicko's victim."

Booth was just grateful when Angela announced the identity of the victim; at least that gave them something else to work on rather than forcing him to over-analyse what he was talking about with Sully when even he wasn't sure where he was going with this…

* * *

"She was supposed to be visiting a friend," Ashton Keller said as he sat in the FBI conference room, Booth looking contemplatively at the husband of their second victim as he looked at her photograph in the case file.

"And when she didn't return your phone call?" Booth asked, standing behind the other man; right now, this guy struck him as the kind of suspect more likely to confess if he felt less pressured to do so, which meant not making himself a physical presence.

"I just assumed…" Ashton said, pausing for a moment as though lost for words before he continued. "She was very independent. Still kinda wild. I mean, she was used to getting whatever she wanted."

"Like what?" Booth asked, looking curiously at him.

"Let's just say she wasn't the wifely type," Ashton said, still looking ahead of himself without turning to look at Booth. "And since she had all the money, she… she thought she could, uh, you know…"

"Do you know any of the men she might have been seeing?" Booth asked, trying to simultaneously spare Ashton saying what she had done in the past and asking him to get to the point.

"I didn't want to know," Ashton said. "I just wanted it to blow over. I loved her, and I know it sounds pathetic… but I just loved her."

"Forgive me, Mr. Keller," Booth said, wanting to get him on to another topic as he walked around the table to stand opposite where the other man was sitting, "but uh, you stand to inherit quite a lot of money, from your wife, don't you?"

"Yes, I do," Ashton said. "I guess I shouldn't be surprised that you suspect me, but I was out of town the night that Sadie disappeared, at a golf tournament."

"I'm gonna need the details," Booth said, as he pulled out a chair.

"Of course," Ashton said.

"Yeah," Booth said, as he sat down opposite the other man.

"Sadie meant everything to me, Agent Booth," Ashton said. "And I know she loved me. Whatever happened, she did. I know that."

It might have seemed slightly pathetic, but Booth could understand that well enough; his relationship with Buffy and Cordelia might have been slightly healthier in that he knew they wouldn't cheat on him, but he would have still done anything to be with them if it was possible for him to be with them…

* * *

"Wow," Oliver said as Bones sat down opposite him in the interrogation room, Booth and Sully silently watching from the observation room out of a lack of anything else to do. "It's like you dressed up just to see me again."

"I can assure you, Oliver, that- that's not the case," Bones said, looking back at him with a slightly apprehensive expression (Not that Booth could blame her; his own deranged 'fan' might have only really been dangerous to the people who relied on him to handle stuff that was out of his league, but this guy could have actually killed someone).

"But that's not what it feels like to me," Oliver said, smiling slightly at his partner in a manner that left Booth uncomfortably reminded of a non-homicidal Drusilla; that kind of pathetic devotion could be dangerous.

"Did you kill those people, Oliver?" Bones asked.

"I-I can't answer that yet; I wanna talk a while first," Oliver said, leaning forward over the table to continue talking to her. "The dead bodies, is it true? Did they really get eaten, like in the book?"

"Yes," Bones replied. "They did."

"I knew it!" Oliver said, grinning in a manner that nobody should grin when discussing a real death; Booth was reminded of the vampire 'fans' with no real idea what they were really like. "Some of the Brennanites were sceptical that the deaths were realistic, but I told them-"

"Did he say 'Brennanites'?" Booth asked, Bones making the same comment on the other side of the mirror.

"Murder mystery chat room members," Oliver said (Booth wondered what people who had talked about Angel on chatrooms had called themselves, but he wasn't going to bother looking). "See, all chat room members have to identify themselves with their favourite author. I'm a Brennanite- of course-, but there are also, uh, Patterstonians and Graftonadas."

"OK, Oliver, I understand," Bones said, evidently wanting to get the conversation back on track. "What did you tell them?"

"That you couldn't make those things up," Oliver said. "That everything you write is based in fact. It could really happen."

"Oliver, I want to talk about the murders," Bones said.

"You look… so beautiful," Oliver said, his tone becoming a lower, eager tone that would have been unnerving even if it wasn't coming from a murder suspect. "Maybe I could get a picture of us together…"

"The murders, Oliver," Bones interjected.

"I know you just dismiss me as another fan, but once you get to know me, you realize I'm an interesting man," Oliver said, reaching out to touch her cheek before the anthropologist pulled away.

"No touching, Oliver," she said, looking at his hand with obvious discomfort.

"OK, end of interview," Booth said.

"Seems like a good call," Sully said, joining Booth as they walked out of the observation area and into the main interrogation room, each of them clear on their current target.

"Let's go," Booth said, walking over to Oliver while Sully moved to stand beside Bones.

"No," Oliver said firmly, as though he was the only person who understood the current situation (Fanatics were always like that, Booth reflected; once you got that kind of fixated world-view, it took a lot to get rid of it). "We want to be alone."

"No, you blew your chance for that," Booth said, grabbing the warped fan's arm and hauling him out of the chair. "OK, you can sit in the cell 'til you're ready to talk."

"Wait, don't leave yet," Oliver said, reaching out towards Bones. "Not yet-"

His attempt to reach for the anthropologist were brought to a halt when she punched him sharply in the nose, sending him reeling back and falling to his knees, only stopping himself from hitting the ground as his elbows caught the table.

"OK," Booth said, wincing in automatic sympathy as Oliver clutched at his nose and moaned in pain.

"See?" Bones said, looking between the two agents. "I can take care of myself."

"Yeah, you better watch it, dude," Booth said to Sully under his breath.

"Oh my God," Oliver said, staring at his bloodstained hands as his nose continued to leak. "There's so much…"

As the fan collapsed at the sight of the blood, Booth wasn't sure if he should laugh or sigh; judging by his reaction to the blood produced by a broken nose, the guy was clearly too pathetic to have killed someone, but that took their best pre-existing suspect off the board with no ideas about where they might find a replacement.

* * *

"Tell ya something, all right?" Booth said as he sat with Bones in her office, reflecting on their latest case (In a warped way, he had to admire the originality of the method; three people with obvious motives to kill taking one of the other's intended victims so that the obvious suspects had an apparently perfect alibi). "Sales of your book are gonna sky rocket after this."

"The only problem is our ending is a lot better than the one I wrote in the book," Bones said.

"What, are you kidding me?" Booth said, glad for the opening for a more relaxed topic. "Kathy Reichs and the FBI guy in the back of the AMG?"

"The arrest," Bones corrected, after sharing a laugh with him at that memory.

"Oh yeah, there's that," Booth said, grinning at the memory of the relevant part in the book; the novel arrest had been a lot less dramatic…

"Sully," Bones said suddenly.

"Yeah, you know you really should apologize," Booth said. "I mean, you were really ragging on the guy. He seemed a little frail."

"Eh, I'm a lot stronger than I look," someone said from behind him, prompting Booth to glance around and realise that the other agent was standing in the door of Bones's office.

"Oh, you were-" Booth began, before he decided to just move on from that and stand up to greet his colleague. "Hey, Sul."

"Hey," Sully said, shrugging slightly as he looked at them. "So, congratulations. You guys make a great team."

"It's true," Booth said, looking contemplatively back at Bones as she returned his look. "So true."

"Thanks for your help," Bones added as she looked at Sully, leaving Booth suddenly feeling like he was the intruder despite having been here first.

"You know, I should run," he said, looking awkwardly at his partner, even as her attention remained focused on Sully. "Bones, ya know, I-I got stuff… see ya at work, Sul?"

"Yeah, I'll see you, man," Sully replied, leaving Booth to get up and walk out of the office, looking back to see Sully walking up to his partner with a vulnerable, uncertain expression on her face that a part of Booth had always thought only he would ever get to see…

"_I have someone in my life now. That I love. It's not what you and I had… It's very new. You know what makes it new? I trust him. I know him_."

This might not be the same situation- for one thing, he was still in his partner's life, he just wasn't as important to it now-, but the end result was the same; he just didn't feel _needed _any more.

He barely even registered Hodgins talking to him about something as he looked at his partner and his friend kissing in her office; all he could think about was how, once again, the woman he… cared about… had chosen someone else over him…

Goddamnit, he'd achieved his Shanshu, was it asking too much for him to get the girl as well?

And when did he start thinking of _Bones _as 'the girl'?

* * *

AN: To anyone wondering, Booth's thoughts on his own 'fan' refers to a storyline in the novel 'Impressions', where Angel encountered a former photography student who witnessed him in action and subsequently started posing as Angel, dressing in a similar manner and taking in clients, only to prove woefully inadequate at dealing with larger-scale threats (As an example, he used a rifle to kill a demon living in a client's garden without really researching how to kill it so it wouldn't come back later) and doing it all just for the power trip rather than recognising what it really meant to _be _Angel.


	39. The Boneless Bride in the River

Disclaimer: I own neither Angel or anything associated with him, and "Bones" is equally out of my reach control-wise

Feedback: Appreciated

Angel of the Bones

Remembering the condition of the corpse they'd recovered that started off this latest investigation, Booth tried not to show his greater-than-normal discomfort; he might be mortal now, and far away from the supernatural world, but the memory of what Marcus Roscoe had done to so many others in the name of his own renewed youth wasn't something he liked to think about, even if he'd have to experience the age part of that equation again sooner or later…

"The victim was boiled and a number of incisions were made from the top of the skull, around her right ear and down her right side," Cam explained, indicating the relevant areas on a diagram on a computer screen. "Then from the left foot, along the outside of the body, to her left hip."

"Someone with medical training?" Bones asked.

"Definitely not," Cam said firmly. "An untrained hand, but a very sharp instrument."

"Boiled?" Booth asked, grateful at the news despite his disgust at the described scenario; at least this all suggested a human amateur rather than a demon sacrifice.

"The entire skeletal structure removed, then the skin was sewn back around the organs," Cam said, a slightly sick smile on her face.

"It doesn't fit any kind of ritual killing I've ever heard or read about," Bones noted, staring thoughtfully at the screen.

"The organs are damaged, due to the clumsy cutting, but everything's there," Cam said. "Except the brain and the eyes."

"Oh my God," Booth said, looking up at the ceiling as he sank down; the idea that someone had managed to do all this and then put the organs _back_…

Just when he thought he'd seen the worst of humanity at Wolfram & Hart, cases like this came along; who _did _something like that?

"It must have been difficult to remove all those smaller bones, like the phalanges," Bones noted.

"Well, it's all gone," Cam said grimly. "I didn't even find one bone."

"The algae in the trunk is Cyanobacteria called Microcystis aeruginosa," Hodgins said as he walked into the office. "The size of the...scum colony indicates eight days submersion… Doctor Brennan?" the entomologist said, pausing as he realised that Bones had started to walk out of the office. "Have I offended you in some way?"

"Doctor Saroyan said no bones, so you know what that means?" Bones said with a smile. "I'm back on vacation. No bones, no Bones."

With that, she turned to head out, only to stop and look back as something came to her. "I was the second 'bones'."

"Very witty," Cam said.

Booth _really _hated the sight of his partner walking away so quickly; it might make him sound petty, but the idea that Bones was abandoning such a fascinating case for her current relationship just felt… _wrong_.

* * *

"I thought you said you couldn't make a face," Booth said, looking at Angela as she scanned through the Homeland Security Database on her office computer, a sketch on the other side of the screen suggesting at the template she was using for this search.

"Did you hear about Zack and Hodgins and the balloon in the head?" Angela asked.

"Yeah," Booth said; the idea of using a balloon to inflate the empty head sounded good as a theory, but it was also seriously warped at best in his view (Angelus might have enjoyed it under the right circumstances, but even he couldn't imagine what those would have been). "Was it as bad as it sounds?"

"Yes," Angela said grimly, turning her attention back to the screen. "The least I could do was try to get her a face, poor woman. So, a boat, hmm?"

"Oh, Sully?" Booth said, quickly realising what Angela was referring to; he might not want to think about too much, but that didn't mean he was completely ignorant of it. "Yeah… last month, he wanted to live in a tree house."

"He's like me," Angela said with a smile as she tapped a couple of buttons on the keyboard.

"Yeah…" Booth said, trailing off as he realised he didn't actually understand what Angela meant by that last statement. "Ya know, I don't see that."

"Well," Angela clarified, "he's not really made for all this murder and corpses and empty eye sockets crap. He's a romantic."

"Unlike me?" Booth asked, slightly hurt at the implication that Angela didn't think of him as a romantic; he might only consider her a friend, but the idea that she thought he was all about his job…

"No," Angela said, looking up at him. "You're a romantic of the narrow kind; you live to catch bad guys, Sully lives wide."

Booth was completely lost about how to feel about that; he'd never really thought of himself as any kind of romantic- except a hopeless one, due to circumstance-, but he definitely didn't think of himself as that focused on his work.

"Hey," Angela said, breaking off his potentially bleak train of thought, "I got a hit off the Homeland Security Database."

"Li Ling Fan," Booth read off the passport photograph that Angela had pulled up from her search, depicting a pale-skinned Chinese girl with long dark hair.

"Yeah, she's here on a fiancée visa from mainland China," Angela said.

"Well, the fingerprints, it's a match," Booth said, as the relevant image was displayed on the screen. "Print this up for me."

"Yeah, this is the victim," Angela said in confirmation.

"OK, I'll go visit her fiancée tomorrow," Booth said, picking up a photograph from the table as he headed for the door, before pausing to look back at the artist once more. "And I… I live wide too. Far and wide. Alright? There's nothing wider than Seeley Booth."

"OK then," Angela said with a smile. "My bad."

The idea that Angela thought he had nothing outside his job just made him feel uncomfortable; he'd had a broad general knowledge of the supernatural as a vampire, he'd had his literary interests, he'd had his drawing…

Did he really come across like that to others now?

* * *

"Sully brought the boat," Bones said as the two of them watched as the casket of their potential second 'victim' was exhumed, a digger working away at the ground (One thing Booth _definitely _appreciated about his new life over his old one; he could request and receive heavy equipment for this kind of thing, rather than his team having to do it themselves).

"Yeah?" Booth said, grateful for this apparent return to normality; discussing someone buying a boat might be a strange thing to talk about in a graveyard, but it was strange in a 'normal' sense, rather than being a strange thing for Bones to bring up. "Next thing you know he'll be shipwrecked on some island talking to a volleyball."

"He's leaving for the Caribbean," Bones said.

"Really?" Booth said after taking a moment to process that, Bones nodding in response in a tearful manner; he and Sully might be casual acquaintances at best, but the guy had clearly come to mean a lot to Bones. "Look, I'm… I'm sorry, Bones. I-I know that the two of you were kinda hittin' it off-"

"He wants me to go with him," Bones said.

"Oh," Booth said, immediately lost for words once again. "Oh… yeah…"

"He-he says I should take a year off, a sabbatical," Bones elaborated. "He says it'll be fun."

"Yeah, it would be," Booth said with an awkward shrug; the advantage of working rather than having a destiny meant that they could at least take time off from their mission, even if it was still important.

"But you just said he'd be shipwrecked with a volleyball," Bones pointed out.

"Well, he's got you," Booth said, lost for anything better to say that his partner would understand. "He doesn't need the volleyball."

"You think I should go?" Bones asked.

There were so many ways that Booth could answer that question that he wasn't sure which one to pick at first- the automatic response that kept the team intact, or the statement that would be what he _should _say as a partner and friend-, before he spoke.

"Yeah," he said reluctantly; he'd torn his heart out for the good of the woman he… cared about… before, so he could do it again; all that mattered was that she was happy. "Yeah, yeah… I mean, you know it's, uh, one year out of your life, huh? I mean a person's gotta… live wide… and this is kinda narrow…"

The sound of the excavator striking something with a crunch at least gave him something else to talk about.

"The coffin already?" he said.

"It can't be," Bones said, looking at the grave in confusion as they both walked up to the hole. "We're only two feet down."

"Oh, easy!" Booth said, looking indignantly at the excavator as it began to move back; the other guy might not have experience, but this was a difficult situation. "Careful!"

As the excavator shovel was removed from the coffin, Booth had no idea what to think when what appeared to be money came flying out of the holes in the coffin lid;

"Is this fake money?" he said, grabbing one of the notes to study it; it had Chinese symbols on it, but even after over a century since the Boxer Rebellion, he didn't think this was real Chinese currency…

He didn't need Bones to tell him that there was no body in the coffin to know that this case was just becoming even more complicated; they'd already found a boneless body, and now they didn't even know what had happened to this other corpse.

The only nice thing about a case being this complicated was that he wouldn't have to think too much about what his partner had just told him…

* * *

As he watched Sully's boat sailing away, Bones standing on the edge of the marina, Booth wasn't sure what he should be feeling about this.

It sucked that Bones was losing someone who'd come to mean so much to her, of course- he wasn't entirely sure what it said about Sully that he'd named his boat after Bones; that felt like a serious bit of emotional manipulation to him-, but at the same time, a part of him couldn't help but grin; someone had finally chose _him_…

"What are you doing here?" Bones asked, turning around to look at him, drawing his attention back to the present and away from speculation.

"I'm waving goodbye," Booth said, holding up his hand and waving at the disappearing boat; he wasn't about to admit to what really prompted this visit when he was still working on it. "See?"

"What do you want?" Bones asked, clearly not entirely fooled by his admittedly weak explanation.

"Breakfast," Booth said, trying to sound encouraging as his partner walked past him with a grim expression.

"I'm not hungry," Bones said.

"Oh, come on, huh?" Booth said, grinning as he manoeuvred around behind her to place an arm on her shoulder while he continued walking. "What are ya gonna vomit when we come across one of those, uh, horrific cases?"

"I don't vomit," Bones said firmly.

"Give it time, Bones, OK?" Booth said. "Give it time. Everything happens eventually."

"Everything?" Bones said, a thoughtful smile on her face at that statement.

"All the stuff, OK, that you think never happens… it happens," Booth said. "You just gotta be ready for it."

As the two walked up the dock, Booth was lost in thought at the deeper meanings behind that statement.

Would he ever have the chance to tell Bones just how incredible the world could be?

She might have just become the first person to choose him when faced with a choice- even if he was trying not to think of it _that _way-, but did that mean that she was capable of coping with everything he'd have to tell her…?


	40. The Priest in the Churchyard

Disclaimer: I own neither Angel or anything associated with him, and "Bones" is equally out of my reach control-wise

Feedback: Appreciated

Angel of the Bones

"You know, the priest made a complaint," Booth said, walking up behind his partner as they stood in the lab, Bones examining what looked like a rib. "He said that you made fun of consecrated grounds?"

"No I didn't," Bones said, still studying the rib. "Perhaps I was a bit… colourful."

"Colourful?" Booth repeated; knowing Bones, her definition of 'colourful' would be hideously awkward for anyone else.

"Writerly," Bones explained as she put the rib down. "I'm a best-selling author, Booth."

"The victim is thirty to forty years old," Zack said from the other side of the table, where he was studying what appeared to be a leg-bone.

"He's an old-school priest, Bones," Booth pointed out; Zack's comment could wait for a response, but Bones needed to hear what he had to say right now.

"What, so I'm supposed to walk on eggshells because someone believes that a plot of earth has supernatural properties because they waved a wand over it?" Bones asked, turning to face him as she waved a smaller bone in his face.

"It's not a wand, it's a…" Booth began, stuck for the best way to explain this. "The church doesn't use wands…"

"Fine, magic water," Bones said dismissively.

"Magic?" Booth repeated. "It's _holy_ water."

"The terminology makes it real?" Bones asked.

"OK, you know what?" Booth said, increasingly exasperated with his partner's approach to the topics that had so defined his life once upon a time. "I can't work with you on this case."

"What-what do you mean?" Bones asked, looking at him in surprise. "The victim was clearly murdered; we investigate murders, together."

"There's evidence of blood pooling on the frontal bone, and an absence of concentric fractures," Zack said, looking at what seemed to be a fragment of the skull. "That requires investigation."

"I'm not working the whole case with you attacking my beliefs," Booth said (He might have doubts about religion from his time as Angel, but he knew that holy rituals worked, so he at least knew that there was _something _out there). "You should have just sailed off with your boyfriend."

"Funny," Bones said, studying another bone as she spoke, "a man who believes in an invisible super-being wants to run my personal life."

"Death would have followed quickly, caused by cranio-cerebral trauma," Zack said.

"By the way," Booth countered, as Bones looked up at Zack, "ninety percent of the world believes in God."

"And at one time, most people were certain that the sun revolved around the earth," Bones said as she turned to face him.

"You see what I mean?" Booth said. "I don't think this is about religion at all; we obviously have issues, OK, that are affecting our working relationship, and you're afraid to deal with them, so you just lash out at my religion."

"Can't you just be satisfied that if I'm wrong about God, I'll burn in hell?" Bones asked, still studying the bones.

"It's tempting," Booth said (He wasn't going to touch that issue, since he was fairly sure that whatever higher power existed didn't allocate you to the afterlife based on what you believed in, but he couldn't exactly share that information with Bones without getting into a more elaborate debate relying on stuff he _really _couldn't share).

"Good," Bones said. "How about we get back to work? You know, I think we both still want to find out who killed this man."

That part of the current situation was at least something that he could agree on; whatever else changed about his job, whether he was fighting demons or tracking down murderers, he would always be someone who didn't want anyone to get away with murder.

* * *

"Shouldn't Brennan be here with you instead of me?" Angela asked as the two of them sat in the church, listening to Father Matt's sermon as the rest of the congregation leant forward in prayer.

"We're dealing with a few work issues," Booth noted, keeping his voice low.

"Trouble in paradise?" Angela asked with a slight smile.

"Just spending some time apart," Booth responded; he liked Angela, but he really wasn't going to touch that issue if he didn't have to. "Now, if you don't mind, I'd like to pray. Thank you."

"Did you two sleep together?" Angela asked, leaning over with a teasing tone to her voice.

"Do you see where we are?" Booth replied. "You don't talk like that in church."

"OK," Angela said, sitting back in her seat. "I…"

"What does that lab do to you people?" Booth said, urgently shushing her before she could say anything else; he hadn't encountered this kind of tactlessness since dealing with Cordelia back in Sunnydale.

"It's just that…" Angela said, pausing for a moment before she continued speaking. "This feels like a couple's thing, and now that Sully is gone…"

"It's not," Booth said. "It's a work thing. So is us being here, so stay focused."

As Father Matt ended his service and turned his attention to asking his parishioners about the current investigation, Booth had never been more grateful for his more official status; it was unlikely he would have managed to make this kind of impression on someone when he was only a private investigator, and his time as Wolfram & Hart had required him to be more removed from the people to maintain his new role. This method of identifying the victim might be comparatively basic, but it was still something that they could only use because of his official connections…

That said, he was still relieved when his and Angela's efforts allowed them to identify the murder victim as a Father McCourt; the earlier conversation had been awkward, but at least now they had more to go on than a face…

* * *

"Yeah…" Booth said, looking around the Medico-Legal Lab as Doctor Wyatt studied some of the bones on the examination table behind him. "You know, I got no problem with this place. It's where Bones and the Squints get their answers. See?"

"Thumbs in the belt," Wyatt said, hands behind his back as he looked at Booth. "That's a very aggressive stance… very male."

Put off by the comment, Booth folded his arms, only for Wyatt to comment on the defensiveness of the posture, leaving Booth to put his hands in his pockets out of a lack of anything else to do.

"Disdain," Wyatt noted, before waving his hands dismissively. "But let's not worry about what you do with your hands. What you must do is recognize your negative feelings for what is, after all, Dr Brennan's domain, and verbalize them."

"Verbalise them?" Booth repeated. "What, now?"

As Wyatt nodded in confirmation, Booth turned to study his surroundings for a moment, lost in thought about his current environment, before he responded. "This place is too… it's too shiny. It's bright. It's clean."

"Clean is bad?" Wyatt asked.

"Death isn't clean," Booth clarified. "Especially murder, which is our business. This place is completely… _fake_, it's bogus."

"You'd like to destroy the entire edifice?" Wyatt asked.

"Oh, I'd like to rip the whole edifice down with my bare hands or set it on fire," Booth said, gritting his teeth as he allowed his thoughts to come spilling out; he'd spent so long working out of older buildings that he still didn't feel entirely comfortable with more modern technology and constructions. "Except, you know, there's nothing in this place to burn... all the plastic and the metal and the flashing lights, you know, and the arithmetic. I mean, where is a guy, a normal guy who believes in intuition and the soul and good and evil…"

"And God?" Wyatt asked.

"Yes, and God too," Booth said (It was a neat catch-all expression for higher powers, so he could say that he believed in a God even if it wasn't the traditional God). "Where is a guy who doesn't believe in all this _arithmetic_ supposed to stand?"

"So your problem with Doctor Brennan is that you don't know what will or will not catch fire, or where you stand," Wyatt said.

"What?" Booth said, lost for how he could really respond to that statement.

"That's good," Wyatt said, smiling thoughtfully at him. "Now that's… that's very good."

* * *

"We need to know what artefacts were buried with Bishop Jersik," Bones said, as they stood in the church talking with Lorraine, the parish administrator.

"You see," Booth said, holding a box of candles as Lorraine set them up at an altar, "there was no photograph of his burial in the paperwork that we received."

"Well, I'm not allowed to pull interment records with Father Donlan's permission," Lorraine began, before looking up as Bones walked along the aisle to another seat. "Where is she going?"

"Bones!" Booth said, noticing where his partner was walking. "You are approaching the altar- very sensitive area!"

"Right," Bones said, her voice low as she nodded in acknowledgement of his statement before she continued walking.

"Listen," Booth said, turning to Lorraine, "you must have known Father McCourt pretty well. Did him and Father Matt have similar tastes?"

"Look," Lorraine said, "the only similarity I know of is that they were from the same seminary."

"Same seminary?" Booth repeated.

"Look, Agent Booth, there's so much suspicion and innuendo these days," Lorraine said, looking at him in a quiet but firm manner. "This is a good parish. The Father makes sure of that."

"What's that?" Bones asked, Booth turning to see her pointing at the silver cup taking pride of place on the altar.

"It's the chalice!" Lorraine said firmly.

"Oh no, it's the vessel in which the wine is transformed into the blood of Christ..." Booth began, hurrying up to his partner; he might be past the point where holy relics could hurt him any more, but a century and a half of shying away from them sometimes translated into a brief concern that the holier artefacts could still be dangerous to people he cared about. "Don't touch it, no…!"

"It is going to be touched, Booth," Bones said, pointing firmly at the chalice. "It's silver, and these little eagles are a common Napoleonic motif."

"You're saying that it's possible that this could be, uh, a murder weapon?" Booth asked, walking up to stand beside Bones as he examined the chalice more closely; conversely, while holy artefacts hurting him was something he'd grown used to, he wasn't as used to thinking of them as offensive rather than defensive objects.

"Yeah," Bones said, looking over at Lorraine. "Can we take this with us, or do we need to serve a warrant on God?"

It might be a spiritually awkward object to confiscate, but with this discovery and Doctor Wyatt's help, Booth was actually starting to have faith that they'd crack this case sooner rather than later and repair their dynamic into the bargain…


End file.
